


i saw the world from the stars

by hissingmiseries



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Chaptered, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Future, Imagine A Post-Apocalyptic Road Trip But In Space, Killing Sithspawn And Falling In Love, Mutual Pining, Post-Apocalypse, Sith Shenanigans, Space Battles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-01-31 18:28:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18596983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hissingmiseries/pseuds/hissingmiseries
Summary: The ships rolled in like a storm. Crackling, bright and glorious. An enormous mass of glowing containers coming in through the atmosphere.Rey shaded her eyes from the sky. Light stuck in her eyelashes. "Do you think it's—""No." Ben's hands were clasped behind his back, knuckles white. He looked very old, very tired, the dust and grime settling into every groove in his face and hair. "It's not them. They're not coming for us."Or, Rey and Ben try to piece themselves back together, with the help of the open galaxy.





	1. i touched the universe

**Author's Note:**

> none of my fics seem to be coming up in the tags so this is a repost under a different title oops :))
> 
> -
> 
> listen.....i told myself i was done writing star wars fic and then the trailer dropped and is2g *mushu voice* I LIVEEE
> 
> a post-apocalypse??? fic, where the return of palpatine causes all sorts of sith spawn and dark side users to wake up all across the galaxy and turn everything to shit. think planets burning, wars, the like. everyone is basically trying to stay alive. _takes place about five years after pretty much every big planet has been wiped out._ i'm not used to such big worldbuilding so please let me know if something isn't clear or doesn't make sense!
> 
> contains: canon-typical themes (violence, battles, etc); heavy sith/dark side/blurred lines of force usage; minor character deaths; non-linear narrative; grey!jedi discourse; dubious consent due to dark side influence on both parts.

 

 

-

 

Later, they would learn that the ships said, _we heard your signal. We came as fast as we could._

Later, the surviving citizens of Morcanth would speak of the beacon they sent out as soon as they had electricity, _We are under attack. Requesting military assistance as soon as possible._

None of this, of course, was clear from the start. At the start there was only the landing bay, and the darkness that crept upon it, and everyone running down and down, to see.

 

The ships rolled in like a storm. Crackling, bright and glorious. An enormous mass of glowing containers coming in through the atmosphere.

Rey shaded her eyes from the sky. Light stuck in her eyelashes. "Do you think it's—"

"No." Ben's hands were clasped behind his back, knuckles white. He looked very old, very tired, the dust and grime settling into every groove in his face and hair. "It's not them. They're not coming for us."

 

-

 

There are conflicting opinions on to what ultimately triggered it all.

Rey thinks it's the death of Snoke. Ben, unmasked and standing in front of his leader's throne, hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. The body at his feet lay in two parts; lumps of alien flesh, eyes bugged, tongue lolling lifelessly. How strange that so many lives have been ruined by something so tiny. He'd looked at her, eyes ablaze and limbs aching and Rey could feel the Force like some crackling, furious energy running through them, between them—

 _Maybe_ , Leia said, in a voice which makes it obvious she doesn't believe it at all.

Ben thinks it to be Rey's fault; of course he does. He blames the way she'd flirted with the Dark side, the way she'd allowed it in without hesitation. Two major Force users both enveloped in the dark: what else could they have expected?

 

Leia's theory makes the most sense.

They were huddled around the Dejarik table on the Falcon. Poe had promised to teach Rey and Finn how to play, but he was succeeding mostly at confusing them with all the creature names. Leia watched from the corner, arms folded and smiling, when—

"Who," a suddenly pale Rey asked, "is The Emperor?"

Leia was still jittery from the events on Crait. "Don't call him that." Too sharp, too harsh. She winced the moment the words left her mouth. "Don't call him that, Rey."

Rey blinked. "But who is he?"

Finn and Poe shared an uneasy glance.

"From where have you heard about him?" asked Leia, approaching them. Her voice was soft and motherly but the look in her eyes couldn't be further.

"I—" There was a shake to Rey's voice. The Dejarik game flickered off and on again. "I don't know. The name came to me just now."

It was times like these when Leia wished she could still talk to her brother. He'd have known what to do.

 

Rey experienced her twenty-second name-day—ironic, a name-day for a girl who has no true legacy—during the early days of the war. The galaxy had already never seen busier times, more bloody times since the Galactic Civil War, when gunships pierced the atmosphere and entire planets were decimated. Only now there were no Death Stars, no green lights reducing worlds to dust. It was merely the Force trying to balance itself, and it did this by resurrecting the person responsible for corrupting Anakin Skywalker, for bringing about the most tragic story of the universe.

Palpatine looked different to how he did in Rey's dreams.

She saw yellow eyes, wrinkled skin. A laugh that buried into the marrow of her bones.

Now he was smaller and slighter; his body had been reassembled from pieces and so everything was mismatched, not quite in proportion. It made him look less human. It made him look untouchable.

 

-

 

Kylo Ren arrived with thunder. Like he always has done, his entire life.

He arrived on Jaguada with his Knights and a fleet of ships and people screamed, scattered like insects. It took the Resistance a minute or two to not lose sight of their true aim and direct all their firepower onto him but then Rey threw out an arm and with it, a current of energy which held them back. "No," she yelled. It isn't her voice. " _Stop_."

His mask was on but she knew he had seen her.

The Force shuddered with sick anticipation. It had sensed what was about to happen.

 

They charged Palpatine's hiding place with teeth bared. It was a fortress within the heart of the only city on the planet, which stood devoid of any human life; the pillars trembled as the Force lashed out from both sides, shattering unstable stone, gouging deep into the walls. The souls of the Sith who constructed it shrieked back at them, the voices of Darth Gravid and Darth Gean in awful harmony, screaming taunts in their heads. Everything felt sick and wrong and Rey felt like her heart was about to burst out of her chest; there were hands wrapped around it, squeezing, her lungs deflated, she couldn't kriffing _breathe_ —

The Emperor staggered. A length of a red lightsaber pierced his chest.

Rey looked up from the floor over which she was spread, vision blurred. There was a clink as Ben's lightsaber fell to the floor and he sank to his knees.

They stared at the body and then each other, chests heaving. The bond they share convulsed with unspoken words. There were tears in both their eyes.

 

-

 

So, this is Leia's theory:

The defection of Kylo Ren from the dark side to fight Palpatine, and the removal of such huge, compelling Dark Side users has imbalanced the Force.

That's what causes it—the revolt, the tidal wave. The Sithspawn waking up after centuries of hibernation.

The young Force-sensitives—the young Reys of the world—seeing a masked man in their dreams, and saying _Lord Vader_ in their sleep.

 

-

 

_TRANSMIT #694NHTARIS (TARIS, N-7, OUTERRIM) via FREQ. AGILE S-SPACE TRANSCEIVER_

_Requesting assistance on planet Taris (N-7) as soon as possible. Reported attacks by Rakghouls and cases of Rakghoul plague in civilians, numbers increasing rapidly._

_If unable to send assistance, please broadcast this message via the nearest transceiver and alert nearby organisations._

_Thank you for your time._

_May the Force be with us._

 

-

 

 

**i. wayland**

 

He is standing at the foot of Mount Tantiss, is Ben. His arms are above his head and his eyes are closed and he is simply breathing. The army of Yuuzhan Vong, mistaking his position for surrender, advance a few steps, amphistaffs curling around their hands, _mes valia dujoz, mes valia anuloti, tapti' su mus—_

Rey watches from a distance. Dark energy runs through her veins, turns her to ice. There are secrets on this planet; ugly things have happened here. 

And then Ben brings his arms down in one fell swoop, fingers twisted into claws.

The Yuuzhan were once immune to Force attacks, but this is Ben Solo. This is the son of Leia Organa, the grandson of Darth Vader, the nephew of Luke Skywalker. The warriors stiffen and shudder, frozen in time, before toppling like dominos and falling to the barren earth. They are dead before they hit the ground.

" _Ja'ak_ ," Ben croaks into the sudden, thunderous silence.  _I am free_.

 

She approaches him once his Force signature has calmed down a little. The Yuuzhan lie motionless as she walks, their serpentine weapons headless in their laps; it was common of their tribe to use sentient creatures to attack with. He is still in a trance, chest heaving. Blood trickles down his forehead and over his eyebrow.

"I told you we shouldn't have come here," she tells him. 

Remnants of Palpatine's energy lingers here, in the stone and the metal. It snags at her veins like stray threads. 

He isn't listening. His lips move and she realises he is speaking Sith, despite having never studied it. " _Jidai_?" he hisses.  _Jedi_. Rey pushes aside why she can understand him and shakes her head.

"Ben," she says. "Look at me."

He does—an awful glare she knows too well. 

"You are on the planet Wayland," she explains. Her voice is even, smooth. "It's a Type I celestial body in the Ojoster Sector in the Outer Rim." She thinks she sees a light return to his eyes; small but there, glimmers of gold. "The Sith occupied this mountain during the Civil War and fashioned a storehouse. The Yuuzhan tribe attacked us and you defeated them, but you were susceptible to the dark energy here _—_ "

He groans, falls to his knees. 

"I get it," she continues, kneeling to meet his level. His eyes drop to his hands; his bones are humming. "I feel it too. You're strong enough to fight this, Ben."

"Why should we fight?" he barks. It isn't his voice. "We can take whatever we want. A Jedi died on this soil, shot down in his starfighter." Rey closes her eyes and sees it, just for a millisecond: mid-air explosions, burning metal. A blue ocean turning red. " _Kotswinot itsu, ja'ak, ja'ak—_ "

 

Rey slaps him. Across the face, hard.

A second or two passes before Ben looks up at her. " _Ow_."

"Thank the stars," she sighs, biting back the relief from showing too clearly on her face. They are professionals, after all. "Come on, let's go."

 

They head back to their ship—a stolen planet-hopper with no hyperdrive—in silence. Likely because they can both hear the echo of the Sith in the back of their minds: whispers from Bane, pleads from C'boath. Ben grits his teeth harder with every step he takes.

"We need to get out of this system," Rey says. "Every surrounding planet was Sith-occupied at one point. If it keeps having this effect on you—"

He bows his head, eyes firmly on his feet. "It was a moment of weakness. It won't happen again."

It will. She can feel it if she concentrates hard enough; the conflict, his Force signature seesawing wildly in his chest. It's the same feeling from the elevator that one day, when he'd watched Snoke's torso split and his body fall at his feet. "Best not to risk it."

There is a bitterness in his voice, an accusatory tone. "You seem awfully composed, to say you're greyer than a Nekghoul."

"I don't find it any easier than you do," she admits. Ben huffs, and Rey finds herself frowning. "You're going to be easier to sway, Ben. I'd be more surprised if you weren't."

"It's been five years," he snipes. "I'm supposed to be better than that."

She reaches out in the dusty air and laces her fingers with his. It's a small gesture but they both feel it—the anchor, the surge of the Force flowing through them like a sigh of relief. It calms them both instantly and Ben holds a little harder, like he's been waiting for this.

"You're okay," Rey tells him, voice soft. "It's going to be okay."

 

-

 

Wayland is a desolate, dusty place. It was once lush with forestry and oceans but the absence of civilisation has allowed nature to claim back its territory. The oceans have dried and paricha root wraps around every available surface. The air is thick with the ash of long-vapourised villagers, their cries hidden in the atmosphere.

"I hate it here," Rey says. The silence amplifies her voice, makes it loud and all-consuming. "Everywhere you look, there's just _death_."

She's not wrong; the skeleton of a Noghri sits up against a burnt tree, yellowing and worn away. Rey can feel its spirit when she looks at it, so she doesn't. Ben seems indifferent, shrugging one shoulder. "Most of the galaxy is like that now."

Rey shakes her head. "There has to be life somewhere."

 

The awakening of the Rakghouls on Taris would have been bearable on their own. The Resistance had swept in, gunned them down from the safety of the air in their starships; few lives were claimed at the claws of such creatures.

Their plague, however, was another story.

Somewhere from the Beyond Shadows, Karness Muur laughed at the devastation his creation had caused. Sith magic was ancient and forgotten. Modern civilisations had never encountered it, didn't recognise it—and had no idea how to fight it.

 

"You're right," Ben says, as they approach their ship. "We need to get out of this system."

The door opens with a rusty creak; to be honest, Rey is amazed it hasn't fallen from its hinges yet. "Hard when this stupid thing can't go into hyperspace."

Ben climbs into the cockpit. One of the few things they can agree on—much to Rey's annoyance—is that he's the better pilot of the two. "We need to find one that does, then."

Rey scowls at him.  _Easier said than done._

 

-

 

Rey writes S.O.S messages into their ship's comlink, which nobody intercepts, and random emotional messages, which many hubs intercept. She wrote an emergency message after the attack on Taris, right after Poe's X-Wing went down in a fireball; it was heard all across the Ojoster sector, every ship who received it saved her ship's serial number to make further communication easier. The messages ceased two days after they escaped with blood on their faces and the Force lashing out in every direction, tying her to Ben like a conjoined twin.

She was a soldier regarding the destruction of Taris, but she was also bleeding. She hasn't spoken about Taris in years. She remembers most of what happened, and poured it out into a final hologram message just in case some lone ship picked it up by accident on the HoloNet. She kept all the hard bits; the things she did wrong, the chances she missed.

It was hard to retell, but she didn't cry. She almost did, but she didn't.

 

Her messages whiz back and forth across the HoloNet, transcribed into every language she can speak with any degree of fluency.

There have been no replies.

She checks every day. You never know.

 

There is a spam-droid that sends their planet-hopper's comlink messages, pretty regularly. Rey used to think that it was an actual person reaching out to them, but then she recognised some of the messages sent: they're all famous Jedi writings.

She sends out a message from Be'ekk, two years into the war. 

It replies with an extract from the Principles of Rajivari:  _All life is a battle, even to the last breath_. Usually they are not so particularly apt, but that makes her smile.

 

-

 

The ship doesn't start.

Rey thinks there's something wrong with the thruster (sublight drive, small and weak). She's elbow-deep in the innards with grease coating her hands whilst Ben stands at the side, fusioncutter at the ready.

"This ship," he grumbles, "is a heap of junk."

" _You're_ a heap of junk," she retorts as she cuts a wire. It sparks and shocks her with a hiss.

"There was literally every ship in the galaxy on offer," he continues. "There was the military base, the Swoop track—"

Rey huffs, "I don't particularly see us flying around the galaxy on a Swoop bike." It hadn't escaped her, that possibility. She'd always wanted to have a go on a Swoop bike. "We wouldn't get very far."

"We're not getting very far now."

"You're the one that flies this thing." There's no real unkindness to her tone. "I'm blaming this on you." She peels herself out of the engine and wipes her hands on her thighs; black smears stain her robes, make her smell like metal.

He looks positively offended at the suggestion that he's responsible, and it almost makes Rey laugh just how much he looks like Han Solo—the bewilderment, the  _it wasn't me!—_ but then it makes her sad, so she doesn't think about it anymore.

"It was functioning perfectly when we made planetfall," he argues.

"Yeah, well," she says, straightening up and wiping stray hairs from her eyes. "Let's just thank the Force that they got the Falcon, rather than this thing."

The Resistance troops who had survived Taris had fled on the Falcon, leapt into hyperspace whilst Ben and Rey watched from the bloodstained surface and waved their arms, screaming with raw throats and lungs. She doesn't blame them for their eagerness, for their fear—it was just surprising to watch them be there one minute, a boxy salvation against the darkness, and gone the next.

"Now  _that_ ," he says, pointedly, "is a  _real_ heap of junk."

Rey laughs. There is a gentleness here, in their little games. It creeps through like a dawn, like a sunrise. Like hope seeping through her bones.

 

-

 

She closes her eyes and touches the Force; it jerks at the contact, surges to life. Familiar eyes look back at her from lightyears away and say,  _we got away_ ; say,  _it's okay, we're alive, we're safe_.

But then something closer, something _—_ something nearby _—_

Everything is dying, nowadays. Most things died a long time ago. A wave rippled throughout the galaxy, angry and vengeful and people fell so easily that it made Rey wonder whether she was lucky or unlucky to have the Force. She does not know if surviving is a blessing or a curse.

At least she has Ben. She will always have Ben.

Years ago, that felt like damnation. Now it feels like relief, like safety. Like a beam of sunlight filtering through a window and falling onto her hand.

 

Her eyes fly open. Ben is staring at her, his eyes look curious. 

"There's somebody alive nearby," she says. "I can feel them."

Ben mirrors her, eyelids fluttering closed and then opening a second later. The expression in them is softer, more hopeful. He looks younger in this light. He looks more like his mother. "I feel them too."

 

-

 

The absence of populations on Wayland is actually not a consequence of the Rakghoul plague, or the attacks of the Yuuzhan tribes. Ben explains it to Rey as they trek through burnt-out woodland, ash crunching under their feet. 

"There was a second Civil War," he tells her. "A Jedi tried to revive all of the planets that had been massacred by the Sith, but then Darth Maladi and Zenoc Quah _—_ he was a Yuuzhan _—_ sabotaged it all. It's basically been abandoned since."

She blinks. It's weird to think of such a small planet experiencing such destruction.

"It's so quiet," she breathes, in hushed awe. "There's usually animals running around or birds flying, but here? There's... there's  _nothing_." Everything is deathly silent. If someone were to step on a twig on the other side of the planet, Rey is convinced she'd probably hear it.

Ben doesn't respond. When Rey looks at him, her brow crumples; he looks pale, sick. "Ben?"

He looks at her, and Rey feels her heart drop into her stomach.  _Not again. Please, not again._

"Whoever it is," Ben says, voice low. It makes her guts churn. "They aren't friendly."

 

The tribe of Yuuzhan they face are bigger, darker than the army they came up against merely hours ago. They tower above the two Force-sensitives and wield their living weapons, feeling them snake around their arms, chanting Sithian rhythms as they advance.  _Gritzi mus_ , forced into Ben's head.  _Join us_.

Rey watches him grit his teeth and feels him fight it. He has the strength of an Organa, the slickness of a Solo. He should be indestructible.

They're out for blood. Rey can feel it with she looks at them: the dark side, curling in her veins. The cries of the trillions of souls they've taken. Oh, kriff. She's supposed to be the rational one. 

Somewhere from the back of her mind, Shimrra Jamaane falls with Luke Skywalker's lightsaber buried in his chest. She feels it thrust through her own torso, feels the burning, feels her ribcage tear in two and her blood boil in her arteries.

When her lightsaber ignites, it burns blue against the grey backdrop.

 

Ben holds them all in place. The Force surrounds the Yuuzhan, contorts them, twisting them into vulnerable positions and keeps them there. He likes this particular technique. It has always worked for him in the past.

Their stillness makes them easy targets. When Rey makes her way through the forest of Yuuzhan, she does not see humans. She does not even see sentient beings. She sees red circles painted onto their bodies and it's through these circles that she slices them. Their bodies crumple at her feet. The eyes of those frozen watch her approach with fear, knowing their fate; she feeds on it. It makes her hungry. She wants this. She wants to do this for all eternity.

 

When the army has fallen, they both snap back into reality.

Rey falls to the ground and heaves, the little contents of her stomach coming up onto the soil. Ben shivers, surveying their destruction.

When their eyes meet, it is clear. 

They need to leave this planet. 

 

"Rey," Ben says. His eyes are wide and fixed on her side, the area where her robes cross over her belly. At first she thinks they have come undone in the skirmish and her face reddens, but then she looks down and sees the blood, the gaping wound.  _Oh._ That isn't good.

When she collapses, he is already there to catch her. It isn't graceful. She falls into his open arms like a ragdoll and he picks her up as if she were weightless.

It courses through her veins. Not dark energy, not even venom _—_ something worse. Something  _evil_.

"Ben," she manages to choke out. He's gone white as a sheet; if it were any other situation, she would laugh at him, at his worry. He has always been a worrier, even back when Finn got himself caught up in a Pikobi stampede. "Kriff, it feels _— kriff_ _—"_

"I know," he says. It takes a few seconds for her to realise he's placed her down somewhere. There is hard earth beneath her back, a violent breeze whipping her face. "Grit your teeth."

A warm sensation spreads through her core. Ben's hand is on her wound, covered in crimson but she doesn't feel it; instead she feels heat. He chants something and it feels like salvation, it feels like _—like—_ like a star exploding, like a new world being born and a new species coming to fruition and it feels like the Force charging her, revving in every cell in her body. It curls in her stomach like hunger. Her arm flies up and latches around his neck, holding onto him for support; she wants to feel this for all eternity. She's floating on clouds, she's _—_

"There," Ben breathes. His hands move to her sides. The touch sends static running through her bones. "You'll live."

Rey has never been Force-healed before. 

It doesn't escape her how sensitive she is, all of a sudden. She would never think of Ben in that way but right now, she wants _—_ what does she want? Something primal stirs in the pit of her gut. She wants _flesh_ ; anyone's will do.

Ben shakes his head. Sometimes she forgets about their bond, that he can hear her every thought.

"Stand up, Rey," he says. "We should go."

She obliges, ignoring the pulsing in her abdomen. This really is not the time. Or the place.

 

-

 

"You know," Ben remarks a few hours later, whilst they're walking through a dense forest with their sabers ignited for light. "The Yuuzhan aren't supposed to be susceptible to the Force. We aren't supposed to be able to sense them."

Rey's head is still a little fuzzy. She shrugs; she does not know the Force well enough to think of an explanation.

"I think it's called Vongsense," he continues. "Being able to interact with them like we did. My _—_ my mother had it." The same look always crosses his face when he speaks of Leia; regret, pain. The look of an abandoned child who doesn't understand what he did wrong.

"I wonder where I got it from," Rey says. The revelation of her lack of lineage has only plagued her with more questions. At least one of her parents was a Force-sensitive; it keeps her up at night, the possibilities. 

Ben feels her uncertainty, and shoots her a pitying look. He would give anything to swap places with her. He would give anything to not know his parents.

 

-

 

When they come across the research station, they're both still a bit jumpy. They both assume fighting positions _—_ Ben preferring Shien whilst Rey immediately opts for Shii-Cho _—_ and await some sort of creature to emerge, but none do. It is just them, and the wind, and the souls of Imperial droids destroyed during the war calling to them from the depths of the building.

 

The building has been cleaned out. Everybody clearly had the same idea when they realised the Yuuzhan were rising again.

Their steps echo off the walls as they walk, distorted reflections looking back at them from crumpled metal skeletons and empty starship shells. "It's empty," Ben says. He extends his Force signature, hunts for life, and hears only a whisper of Milosh Muhrlein and his black market dealings telling him to  _leave_. "In literally every way."

Rey kicks a black box at her feet. "Did the First Order know about this place?"

"I knew about it," he says. "We never used it, though. It was too small, too far away."

"So anything that people took when they were trying to escape," Rey considers, "was from the Clone Wars era?" 

They both see ships coughing out black smoke, engines failing mid-air. Hulls splitting themselves in two during a failed hyperspace launch. There is so much death, it is everywhere. Rey is so sick of looking at it.

Ben nods; his mouth is a stressed-out line. He has caused so much death in his lifetime, and yet Rey can feel the way it's torn into his soul, ever so slightly. The bond feels like a sentence sometimes, even after five years of its presence; sometimes it is a tumour growing in her side with no way of cutting it out.

 

They find an abandoned TIE fighter. It's engine _—_ a P-s4 twin ion _—_ is the same one used in their shitty little planet-hopper.

Rey beams like she's just won the Galactic Lottery. 

It takes the two of them to hoist out the energy coils. Ben loosens them by himself but they have to work together to levitate them all the way back to their own ship, sat patiently in the breeze.

"Where are we going," Rey says, lifting the bonnet, "when we get this working again?"

Ben looks up at the stars as if he could touch them. "We don't have enough fuel to make significant leaps _—_ the nearest planet is probably Myrkr or Halmad."

She quirks a quizzical eyebrow. "Were they Sith-occupied?"

"Yuuzhan-occupied," he says. "They'll be crawling with them."

"Oh, fun," she deadpans. "I don't know if there's anywhere left in the galaxy that isn't trying to kill itself."

 

-

 

When the ship starts working and the engine roars to life, they receive a message on the commlink.

It's a mature female voice which they both recognise.

Every atom in Ben's body turns towards her; it's not even a Force thing anymore, it's a Ben Solo thing. He glares at the speaker as if he wants to fight it, and Rey  _knows_ , knows the bewilderment and the way his heart beats out of rhythm at the mere thought of his mother. His heart still struggles to accept the forgiveness she eventually gave him, after Palpatine's demise; Rey understands why he's hesitant, why he thinks he's undeserving. Part of her agrees with him, but then she remembers her lightsaber in Snoke's side and his lightsaber in The Emporer's chest and the countless Resistance lives he saved. 

He exists to her in this strange grey zone between redemption and damnation. Not quite an enemy but not quite a friend.

 

She knows, however, that her own complicated feelings are likely nothing compared to the tangle in Leia's heart every time she thinks about her son.

Leia's voice on the commlink makes electricity pour through Rey's veins.

_This is General Leia Organa broadcasting from the Resistance Base on Corellia. Requesting any and all replies from active ships in the Outer Rim Territories. This message will be relayed at midday of the next day-cycle._

Neither of them move. The bond heaves and shudders.

_Requesting any and all replies from active ships in the Outer Rim Territories._

(The last few words disintegrate into static. Corellia is so  _far away_.)

 _This is General Leia Organa_.

 

The microphone pops and hisses before Rey has a chance to reply. Black smoke rises in a thin, awful stream.

Ben is _—_ staring at it. So hard.

"I know it's scary," she tells him, voice soft. 

He doesn't reply; he just nods, sad and rueful and accepting. Rey can feel how much he resents being bared to her so openly, even after all this time. He shifts in the light; you can't light up all sides of a person at once.

 

Rey and Ben went to Wayland, but before that, they spent a lot of time running.

Bravery is hard to find but you find it anyway. Rey learned from the best.

 

"It will take a while to get there," Rey says, pressing a sequence of buttons on the dash. They light up in weak hues of red and blue. "If we go via Hydian Way and turn off at Corellian Run _—_ or maybe the Corellian Trade Spine, depending on how many stops we have to make for fuel and parts _—_ "

Ben says, suddenly, harshly: "Are you sure?", then, "we don't have to, Rey."

"Our friends are alive." The ship whirs and beeps and coughs as it wakes. "Your mother is alive. _Finn_ is alive _—_ " She bites her lower lip. "I miss them, all of them. We should have gone back before."

Ben breathes out, soft and shuddering, and so Rey knows that this is serious business. "Okay."

 

-

 

 

**ii. halmad**

 

For three days they've been trekking through the humidity of Halmad. It's creepy and dark and Rey thinks that they both smell a little bit, but none of that matters in the wake of the silence. It turns out there are no Yuuzhan here, or any Sithspawn in fact. The only life here is native fauna, scuttling around fearlessly, bold as the night.

They are in the city of Hullis. Stone buildings reach up into a blue sky, everything is quiet. There is an Imperial base buried somewhere in the depths of the earth but Ben says,  _I can feel something dark under my feet_ and Rey can too, so they avoid the shadows. The city will do just fine.

 

A meteor shower occurs on the first night.

They are in an abandoned cantina down one of the back-streets. Moss has claimed the doorframe and there is dust coating every table and chair, from where distant explosions have shaken the walls. Rey finds an unopened box of rations _:_ nothing appetizing, just protein paste and nutrient bars, but they're too hungry to care about taste.

"I want caf," she says, into the comfortable silence. "I used to live on it back on the Falcon."

Ben grimaces. "No wonder you were so irritating all the time."

"Or hot chocolate with tang bark," she continues wistfully. "Kriff, I would kill for that. With blue milk."

Ben drops his eyes and takes another swallow of his Aitha (served cold, which makes his nose scrunch with distaste). Rey skims the surface of the bond carefully _—_ Ben allows her to _—_ and feels the weight of childhood memories burn in his soul, antagonising him from the depths of his memories. It has always confused Rey how one could hate their childhood. She never had one, and it doesn't occur to her why someone would want to forget the faces of their parents, the voice of their mother singing them to sleep.

Her naivety isn't her fault.

She grew up fighting Crolutes for scrap, and begging food from Unkar Plutt.

Rey reaches across the table and picks up an old menu. The paper has yellowed with age but the text is still legible.

"Let's see," she begins. " _Flangth_ _—_ never tried it _. Dianoga pie_.  _Adder moss. Corellian sap-wine_ _—_ " 

The mention of Corellia makes them both stiffen. She thinks Ben is going to stay miserable and sad all day but then he pushes his glass aside and takes the menu from her, gently, and reads it himself. His eyes light up just a little; the gold flecks that shine when he's remembering something flicker like jewels in his irises. 

Rey doesn't want to pry, not too much. She wants to extend her Force sensitivity and delve into what is making him so emotional, but years in his company has taught her where the boundaries lie. When they are like this _—_ sober, not overly-tired, content _—_ they have no excuses to be letting memories or feelings bleed into the bond that tethers them so desperately.

 

But then Ben lets her.

An image develops in her mind, blurry:

A young Ben, painfully thin in white robes, barely older than twelve or thirteen. The unmistakable grin of Han Solo and his shaky, war-stained hands. The smell of bittersweet Burshka juice being poured into two cups.

It is staticky and distant, but even in the fleeting moment, Rey can feel it.

"Oh, Ben," she breathes, like a revelation. "He loved you. Ben, he loved you so much."

 

Then it's as if she's collided with a door that slams shut in her face. 

Ben looks away, face unreadable. Rey inhales deeply as she comes back to reality.

This is the danger of their bond; sometimes, things hurt just a little too much to share.

 

They sit and stew until Ben notices the streaks of colour in the sky. Dusk fell and the stars arose, but suddenly the heavens are crying and meteors are racing over their heads, leaving glowing paths behind them. At first Ben thinks they are passing ships, but they aren't so lucky.

Rey drags him outside and they sit there, on the damp soil. 

"I've never seen a meteor shower before," she admits. She might be crying. 

Ben shuffles in closer, head tipped back. "There's a jungle planet called Borleias in the Colonies that experiences one every year," he tells her. "The Deadbelt of the Tasar system was created when a planet broke apart and fell into its atmosphere. Legend says the civilians at the time thought it was the end of the world, but then the rocks settled in the orbit and it protected them from invaders for thousands of years."

"That's beautiful," she breathes.

"It's dangerous," he counters. 

"Can't things be both?"

He says nothing, peers at the curve of Orion's bow and follows it up to the figures of Gemini. His astronomy isn't what it used to be but years of C-3PO's lessons before joining the academy do not fade easily.

"It makes a nice change from Taris," Rey says. "All the smog and the light pollution. I'd almost forgotten what the stars look like."

Ben misses the smog. He misses choking on it. "Cities are all I know." Growing up on Chandrila, all he had seen was the metropolis of cities and the networks of skyscrapers, roads covering the earth like webbing. "I didn't see an ocean until I was fifteen."

"I didn't see an ocean until I was nineteen," she retorts, almost in challenge. "Beat that." 

He scoffs lightly. "You grew up on a desert, of course you didn't." 

"I saw a lot of sand," she says. "More sand than I ever want to in my life. It gets absolutely everywhere, too. In your hair, your clothes. Nothing is worse than when you wake up and there's somehow sand in your  _ear_."

Ben is _—_ he's _laughing_. Well, more like chuckling, but Rey hears it and it makes warmth spread throughout her chest as if a vein has burst. "I don't remember the last time I heard you laugh," escapes her mouth, absent-mindedly.

He stops immediately, but not before he says, "No, me neither."

 

-

 

Nobody listens to Rey's messages. She broadcasts them to a subspace relay station which hovers somewhere in the Mid Rim, able to be reached by both the Core and the more isolated fringes of the Outer Rim. She sends them from a tiny busted-up commlink. She writes like she is yelling into the void.

 

She is curled up in the ship whilst Ben is hunting for food, and she thinks,  _why not?_ She hasn't sent a message in months.

 

_I feel things I shouldn't, sometimes. I didn't know what it was to really feel something for someone, until I met you. I had heard about it—the world is supposed to go dark and fireworks go off around you, and you fall so hard you feel like you will never be upright again—but it isn't like that for me._

_It's small, and constant. It's this little thing in the back of my head, and how my heart quickens every time you speak. I don't know how long it has been that this has been happening. It was before Snoke, it was before the cave where we touched hands. It was before we duelled in the snow._

_You are so brave, you don't realise just how brave you are. You make me braver with every step you take._

_I think some little piece of me has always been searching for you._

 

The words rattle around the galaxy, relayed back and forth across the sky for all of eternity. It almost comforts her, how even when they're both long gone at the hands of age or a lost battle or the glory of a supernova, her words will remain for somebody to hear. Even if it is just the stars who listen.

 

-

 

The second night, they find a bar and get really kriffing drunk.

 

Rojio's is a bar right smack bang in the centre of Hullis, which they find whilst attempting to locate the planet's spaceport in the hope of coming across a ship. Something that can actually leave the system, please. 

 _The great thing about alcohol,_ Ben says, eyes glittering,  _is that it gets better with age._

 

They go through bottles of purple Phattro and Jet Juice, named after its popularity with Rebel Alliance pilots during the Civil War. Things are going okay until Rey uncovers an entire crate of Halmad Prime hidden under the U-shaped bar and then _—_ well, you can imagine. The lack of bartender allows them to drink the entire place dry, because they're allowed a night off from the world and its demons, and because sometimes there is nothing better than getting absolutely hammered in the arms of your bond-partner. 

There is a jukebox in the corner, with surviving records. 

Ben feeds it a trugut coin and it whirs to life. A Huttese tune fills the building; loud and jaunty. The speakers are filled with dust so it sounds a little sketchy, but neither of them care.

The bond seems to loosen in their drunkenness. It nudges them, mischevious. Rey can almost feel it cackling as it pulls them together.

She stands, staggers slightly. Everything is blurry at the edges but Ben is there, a pale cutout, his body a black silhouette. She thinks of that time she turned and he was there with his chest bare and his shoulders heaving with exertion; she remembers the way blood had rushed to her cheeks and her body had ached, all of a sudden.

 

"Come on, Solo," she says, extending a hand. "Dance with me."

Ben stares at her like she has just grown two heads.

"I know you're a miserable Sleemo," she continues, "but if we're going to be ripped apart by some crazy Sithspawn on a random planet nobody's ever heard of, I want to have at least danced before it happens."

He huffs at her, bottle in his hand. "I'm not miserable."

"So you admit that you're a Sleemo." Rey raises her glass, triumphant; she nearly spills it but she doesn't care, because all of her attention is on Ben, all of her will. Through the bond she pleads a little,  _come on, work with me_.

It takes a few seconds, but he does.

He joins her in the centre of the room, pushes some tables out of the way with a flick of his wrist. Rey doesn't really know what she is doing or _how_ one actually dances. She remembers campfires on Niima Outpost and the Uthuthma and Abednedo circling each other as someone banged a rhythm on pots and pans. Not exactly soft or romantic _—_ if that what she's going for.

Ben, it turns out, is just as clueless.

"Ow," he grumbles when she stands on his foot.

"Move then," she retorts. Her breath is sweet and fruity on his cheek. "Come on, Solo. Put your back into it."

 

They end up doing some shapeless, bouncy routine. Rey takes his hands and swings their arms back and forth, swivels around him until a smile dares to break out across his face. The song slows a little and they follow; their bodies tug closer together and her grip moves to his shoulders, his to her waist. 

They circle each other, slowly, lazily. Heat curls around her, through her. It's supposed to be a drunken joke, it's supposed to be funny, but neither of them are laughing. Ben is looking at her like she hung the moon and all the stars above them.

"When we get back to Corellia," she smiles, words slurred. "I am telling the entire galaxy that Ben Solo dances like a three-legged Bantha."

He tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. His voice is deep when he says, "You do that,  _min larel_." 

 

Twilight seeps in and turns everything silvery blue. Rey doesn't quite remember when her ear found Ben's chest but it did, and now she can feel his heartbeat echoing in her head, syncing with her own. 

The fingers of his left hand are in her hair. Just _—_ gentle little strokes.

Her legs feel nerveless. She wants to run. She wants to stay here for all eternity. She doesn't say anything, because she doesn't need to; they can both feel everything through the bond, unfurling between them like ribbon, an energy that is not exactly unknown to them, but new enough for Rey to think  _oh, hello_. To think,  _where in the galaxy did you come from?_

 

 

-

 

She wakes up the next morning, in the ship. A tauntaun fur blanket has been pulled over her body.

Oh, and her head hurts.

Her head _really_ kriffing hurts.

 

"Guess what." Ben's shape appears at the ship window like a phantom. If Rey wasn't squinting so hard to block out the sunlight, she'd probably have sabered him out of shock.

"What," she grumbles, "you  _koochoo_."

He holds up a glass container filled with black beans and oh stars, she can almost smell the caf from here.

"I take it back," she says. "You're the good kind of _koochoo_."

"Stop calling me an idiot in Huttese," he says. "Or I might accidentally drop this over your head."

When she's finally peeled herself from the seat (moving very slowly as to not worsen her pounding headache), Ben has heated some water in a metal pot over the ship's grumbling engine. Rey doesn't lecture him for the waste of fuel _—_ there are more important things to consider.

Her hangover being one of them.

 

-

 

There is a new reply to Rey's most recent broadcast. Their planet-hopper doesn't allow them to track it but as soon as she sees the contents, she knows it is that spam-droid again. It comes through in crackly static, an automated voice, professional.

 

_We are one when together / we are one when parted / we will share all / we will raise warriors._

 

It is an old Mandalorian marriage law. Rey runs a finger over the commlink button, knows it won't work after Ben's little mind-trick but tries anyway. The dashboard goes blurry. She bites her lower lip so hard it bleeds.

 

-

 

On the third day, they finally head off in search of the spaceport.

They walk in slightly-stilted silence, choosing to follow the path rather than lose themselves in overgrown woodland. The road is damaged from previous conflict, the earth upturned by haphazard take-offs by speeder bikes and escape pods. Weeds have bloomed in every gap and crack.

 

 

"I don't understand," Rey begins when they make their way towards Fellon, "why we haven't met any survivors."

Ben brings a hand to his eyes to block the sun. He can make out the outline of buildings in the distance. "Everybody died or ran."

She shakes her head. "Not just here. Everywhere. Wayland was empty, Taris was empty _—_ "

"Taris wasn't always empty," he counters. Rey clenches her jaw; she doesn't particularly want to think of what happened on Taris. It's a story that she needs to be dying to talk about freely. That or extremely drunk.

"It's empty now," she says. "This entire system is. We're getting no comms except that one from Leia, and she's lightyears away."

"Probably for the best." Ben's eyes have gone dark. Rey resists the urge to clip him around the ear.

"Just be thankful that she's safe,  _or'dinii_ ," she hisses. "Not all of us have that luxury."

That shuts him up. His Force signature tremors wildly and Rey feels invisible barriers fly up, feels the bond seal shut at one end like a kinked pipe.  _Okay,_ she says into the new void.  _If that's the way you want to play it._

 

Their dynamic confuses her, sometimes. How they move from one extreme to the other _—_ nights where they melt into each other's bodies, and days where they would gladly Force-choke the life from each other _._ It feels like a rope pulled taut, like a foreign spell. Maybe she will figure it out someday.

 

The spaceport is very underwhelming. It is merely an expanse of flat concrete, surrounded by scorched grass on all four sides. The carcass of a shuttle sits in the middle, its wings detached, burnt black. Fire has eaten away the entire left side.

"That one's out of the picture, then." Rey pokes her head into the interior; long white corridors, mostly unscathed.

Ben follows her. She feels his presence behind her, a towering figure. "We can siphon fuel from it if it didn't all burn away."

"Siphon it into what? We need a ship first."

His smile is small but incredibly smug _—_ or maybe triumphant? _—_ when he taps on her shoulder, then points at a dark shape hiding in a pile of scrap, partly covered by a ratty cloth. "We've got one."

 _Ben Solo_ , she breathes into the bond. Her eyes are shining.  _You clever bastard._

 

It turns out that the dark shape is a Star Commuter 2000, an unarmed hyperdrive-fitted model often used by the Resistance to shuffle civilians from planet to planet after First Order attacks. They are typically droid-piloted but whatever computer which once controlled this particular ship has long since had its wired ripped out and cogs removed for parts. The dashboard is a mess of nuts and bolts but when Rey closes her eyes and extends the web of the Force, she sees how it once should have looked and her hands carefully reassemble what they can.

Ben siphons fuel into the tank and circles the ship, fixes the rips and small tears. He pops out the dents with a flick of his hand.

"If this works," she calls through from the cockpit. "You owe me ten peggats."

He huffs from behind a panel. "There wouldn't be much use for them," he says. "Perhaps that's one of the good things about this mess. We don't have to worry about money anymore. What we can afford, what we can't."

"There was no such thing on Jakku." She presses a button and the engine splutters, coughs. "It was old engine parts and food rations. The day we found Starship Graveyard was like we'd won the Corellian lottery. Everyone fought over it _—_ I had to beat Teedo off with a stick from getting his hands on the hyperdrive activator _._ It got me eighty portions in the end." This small, sad smile flickers across her face at the memories. She doesn't miss it _—_ the sunstroke, the constant hunger _—_ but it was a constant. It kept her always fighting. 

She notices that Ben has gone quiet. He's listening, intently. He's interested.

"What?" she asks; her throat is dry, it's barely a whisper. The word travels more through the bond than the air.

"Nothing," he says. Then, "I'm not in your head, I promise. You just _—_ whenever you talk about Jakku, you feel sad. You feel like you've left something behind." He looks at her, careful. "It's written all over your face. I can see it in your eyes."

"We've both left things behind," she replies. 

Ben has left entire worlds behind. He has left pieces of himself scattered throughout the galaxy: his helmet on the floor of a turbolift, his childhood on the beaches of the Chandrillian silver sea. A bit of his heart on Jaguada, another bit in Rey's hands. Some here, some there.

He climbs into the cockpit and sits beside her on the co-pilot's seat. Perhaps it's her turn to fly. "I'll never get tired of seeing the stars. I've seen things in the last few years that I never would have seen in the Core."

"But _—_?" Rey prompts.

"I don't know if I want to go back."

A few years ago, she wouldn't have understood. Rey grew up without a family; she wouldn't have grasped how you can love someone but not like them at the same time. Now, though, she is seasoned. She knows how reluctant love can claw its way into one's soul. 

"Ben," she says, quietly. "You have family waiting for you on Corellia."

"Family who won't exactly be anticipating my return," he spits.

"That's not true."

"The way she looked at me on the Falcon _._ That was pure hatred in her eyes."

He's talking about after they killed Palpatine. He had stumbled, blood-stained, onto the ship and directly into the path of his fuming mother; she had clenched her fists with anger and thought,  _You killed my husband_. She had wanted to make him pay.

Ben had stormed off before he'd seen the dawn break across Leia's face, and the relief flood in.

Perception truly is reality.

"She always had faith in you," Rey continues. "That you'd return to the light. She had faith in you long after I lost it."

(His return to the light was expected by everybody, honestly. Snoke had feared it. Rey had prayed for it. Luke had simply seen it, and stepped back to watch it happen from the Force, patient. It unfolded like an old Jedi tale.)

There's a sharp pain niggling at Rey's left temple, as if something is burying into it. She can feel the Force skimming her mind curiously, with hesitation _—_ Ben is searching for proof. The idea of his mother's confidence is such an absurd concept, it cannot be believed without seeing it himself.

Rey's brow furrows. "You know," she says, "you could always just trust me." She doesn't stop him, though. He explores, hunts the memory. His eyes glaze over and then suddenly he is gone from her head; the loss of him feels like a vacuum.

He sounds exhausted when he says, "I do. I do trust you."

 

-

 

The ship actually kriffing starts.

It takes their combined Force push to give it a boost, but the engine starts and they are up up _up_ in the air. Rey is flying this time, she knows Resistance ships better than Ben. It feels good to push the lever and watch the stars bleed into hyperspace around them.

 

Rey gets the comlink started as soon as Ben leaves the cockpit.

First is the obligatory  _this is Shuttle ST-15_ and  _requesting response from nearby vessels_. Afterwards, though, she angles the transmission and lowers her voice. Presses the button with a hope she hasn't felt for a very long time.

_This is a message for General Leia Organa of the Resistance._

_Leia, it's Rey and Ben. We've just left the Quelii sector, we're currently hurtling through hyperspace somewhere. Save two cups of spicebrew for us, General. We're coming home._

 

-

 

 

**iii. honoghr**

 

They make planetfall on Honoghr when the fuel meter starts encroaching dangerously on the red zone.

"I got as much as I could," Ben says apologetically as they land. It's a bumpy landing, the windows rattle in their panes.

Rey taps a nail on the meter, just to watch the needle fall even further. "Don't worry about it. Gives us more time to explore."

 

They've landed in the middle of a forest shrouded in toxic mist. Both of them feel it instantly. Their Force-sensitivity protects them from scorched lungs and swollen throats but then Ben takes a few steps and instantly falls into a trance.

"He lied to them," he whispers, out of the blue. "They killed his troopers. He told them he'd save their planet if they served him, but he was poisoning them the entire time."

Rey doesn't hesitate, grabs him by the shoulders. "Ben _—_ who can you see?"

He's so far away. "She was here, too. She freed them. She gave them hope _._ Kriff, she gave them so much  _hope_."

She closes her eyes and dives as deep as she can into his brain, tugs and plucks at the threads which bind them so treacherously until they play a tune she recognises. His vision pours into her mind and _—_

The sooner they get their fuel, the better.

 

"I _—_ " Ben shakes his head, the distant expression vanishing, replaced with something tighter and more furious. "This planet was Empire-held for centuries. We can't stay long."

Rey hears a breathy, baritone laugh from somewhere in the heavens. 

"He came here, didn't he?" she asks. Ben goes pale. "Your grandfather."

A moment passes before he nods. "Yes. I think he did."

 

-

 

Very few parts of Honoghr are hospitable, it turns out; there was a ship crash during the Clone Wars which caused a toxin to spill and wipe out most of the fauna. It forced the native Noghri to relocate to a tiny part of the planet which had remained unscathed, only to be enslaved by the Empire. Vader had come down in his ship and promised to restore their ecosystem in return for service, whilst his troopers replaced the fields of Kholm-grass with a hybrid that spread like a disease. 

"They developed a technology to decontaminate the earth," Ben explains, still tremoring from another vision. "Decon droids." He is particularly susceptible in this environment. Vader's fingerprints are everywhere they look; in the blackened vines, the starless sky. The tightness around both of their necks like a noose.

Rey coughs. Black dust comes out on her palm. "Clever things."

"My mother helped." Rey stills, swivels around. She can't have heard that right. 

"Leia was here?"

Ben looks weak and anaemic in this light. "She told them the truth. About what my gr _—_ what Vader did." His eyes are wide and bewildered and kriff, it has never been clearer where Ben inherited his courage from.

 _Ah_ , Rey thinks, finally recognising the strange sensation that has been tugging at her heart since they landed. _That's what it was._

"Hold onto that," she tells him. It leaves her mouth like an order. "Use it. Use it to find your strength. The light will always be here for you when you need it, Ben."

 

Something evil awakens a few kilometres away; the Force feels it.

A look passes between them and it isn't scared, but determined. He touches the Light and she allows herself a glimpse at the Dark, just for a second. She needs to feel the fire.

 

The Rakata had not stirred on the surface of Honoghr for millennia.

Palpatine had called them from lightyears away and suddenly they were there, thousands of them, beady-eyed and hungry. They blinked into existence and the Noghri pleaded to the Force,  _not again._

They are no Sithspawn but they know the Force. Rey feels it when she encounters the first one, cornered on the edge of the wood, the shape of a stone temple outlined by a rising blood moon. It soaks the planet in red and chills her to the bone.

 _Be careful,_ Ben's voice trickles through the bond.  _Rakata are vicious. They won't think twice about tearing the skin from your body and eating it._

Rey huffs, humourless.  _Lovely._

 _I'm serious._ When she turns around she can't see him; he has blended into the trees, concealed himself in the shadows. It is unnerving, just how effective it is.  _Don't worry. I'm right behind you. Ignite your saber and draw him out—_ the Rakatan senses the energy, cocks a curious head in her direction.  _Don't be afraid. I feel it too._

 

She follows his instruction.

Her saber lights.

A hundred shapes pounce from the darkness as if they had only been waiting.

 

-

 

Ben's invisibility is a stroke of genius. It confuses the creatures; they feel his Force signature, dark and rich and powerful, but cannot pinpoint his location. It makes them stall just long enough for Rey to cut them down.

They move as fluid as ever. Pulls and pushes, etched in fate, choreographed as if written out and practised. Reptilian corpses pile up around them and black blood laps at her feet and ice is pooling in her body, coursing through her veins, into her elbows and the backs of her eye-sockets and the roots of her hair _. Midwan midwan midwan _—__

 

 _I understand_ , Rey sends down the bond. Her free hand lifts a Rakatan into the air and physically pulls the life from him until he hangs limp. She does not feel like herself; she feels bigger, stronger. Free. Stars, the  _freedom_ _—_ it spills on her tongue, hot and awful. The dark side is the easy way out but she has been fighting for so long, why is she not allowed the easy way out, why is it so evil when it makes her feel like this _— I understand now, Ben._

 _Rey,_ he almost screams. It makes her head hurt.  _Don't fall for the dark. Endure it. Stay there, stay with the light. Don't be like me._

He too is struggling. He has been since they touched down. The Rakata temple and the Sith Academy that sit so close are chanting in the back of their minds like death knells, hypnotic, intoxicating. 

 _Lord Ren,_  one says. 

Another whispers,  _Ari._

Rey hears it all.

 

The lightning tips her over the edge.

It nearly blinds her. It strikes in the very centre of the swarm and illuminates the bones of the army. Rey feels it hum in her teeth, feels it charge her bones.

When she looks back, Ben's eyes are two pure circles of gold. His gloves are on, he is no longer invisible but instead a huge robed figure against the trees like something from a nightmare. His saber hangs at his belt, unused. He has done all of this with his hands.

The lightning he brings down is not the white crack that Rey is used to, what she saw during rumbling storms above Jakku that whipped the sand into a frenzy. It is blue; long, sharp tails of it. Another branch comes down and splits into fingers in mid-air, targets various Rakata directly. Their skeletons are visible when it strikes.

 _It's beautiful_ , she thinks. 

 _It's dangerous,_ he counters.

She thinks back to them beneath the meteor shower, that same conversation.

 _Can't things be both?_ Her saber cuts through a surviving creature. It falls with a strangled cry.

Ben sighs, into the night. His breath curls into smoke.  _You are._

Rey turns around; her eyes are two bullets, she can see the world differently. Everything is in technicolour, the reds, the golds. The mist billowing around their legs, creeping up their bodies. And in all of it, Ben _—_ kriffing  _Ben_ with his dark eyes and strong hands and power which made the strongest Jedi in the universe shake.

 

He stares back, chest heaving. "Rey _—_ "

Ben never finishes the sentence. She charges him, pushes him against a tree and presses her lips against his so hard, she tastes blood.

 

It feels like _—Iike_ _—_ she doesn't know what it feels like. There is no comparison. There is just them, dark energy in her veins, electricity on her skin. Soft lips trailing hungry, primal kisses down her neck and the curve of her jaw and calloused hands exploring her, every inch of her. The bond shrieks with contented delight. It has been waiting for this for a very long time.

He picks her up as if she were weightless; turns them around as her legs anchor themselves around his waist. Her back arches. This is what she wishes she felt like all the time, all sensuality and secret promise and surrender. 

Ben stills, peers at her through lidded eyes. Washed in red light she looks like a sick dream. Something he always yearned for but never thought he could touch.

" _Cyare_ ," he breathes. He has the same look in eyes from Snoke's throne room. 

Rey blinks, crystalline, made of Vashkan honey. She tangles her fingers in his hair and closes the gap between them.

 

They stay there all night, using his cloak to keep out the cold. The ground is damp beneath their bodies but neither of them notices; heat and sweat pour from them, shameless. When Rey rolls off of his body, her hair is a mess and her lips chapped. Her core is still trembling.

His arm extends around her waist. They've both been leaving little touches on each other for years _—_ sometimes casual but most of the time lingering, questioning, full of possibility _—_ but this is sure, and weighted. 

The bond relaxes as they fight their way back to the Light.

 

-

 

The sun rises and with it, the weight of the world from Rey's shoulders.

Any feeling of dark energy has gone; she hesitates to search for it after what happened last night, but she no longer feels critically nauseous, so it has probably gone.

As have the Rakata bodies.

She notices, and prods Ben awake. It is just them, nothing else. The salt beneath where they lay is flat.

 

"Oh," Ben says. "That's new."

 

-

 

Everything feels different now.

As a pair, they have spent so long teetering on this knife edge, not stable enough to stay, not forward enough to fall. Ben has always looked at her out of the corner of his eye, little flickers. Like a fish darting around in a creek; close enough to touch, then gone again. She has always done the same. 

Now, they are both knee-deep. They're in it up to their kriffing necks and Rey doesn't know what to do, what to say. All she knows is that she wants to feel Ben's arms around her for the rest of her life. She wants to tuck her soul up next to his and stay there.

 

-

 

It's a beautiful day. Hot and dry, sun all the way up and beaming down on Rey's shoulders and Ben's dark hair.

They get out onto the open desert plains and find an old mud hut, dusty grey in the direct heat. It's empty and has clearly been ransacked, but it's nice and cool and it lets the sweat on their skin dry.

"I bet you're regretting that attire now," Rey smirks, raising her chin. Ben is _drenched_. 

He glowers, more at the floor than her. "Black is not the most suitable colour for a desert planet, I admit."

Her hand floats out and grasps at the fabric: extremely thick, most likely stitched together by a fabricator droid. "You'll bake alive in this." Then, "take it off."

It would have been such an innocent suggestion the day before. The Force gasps like a scandalised teenager and Ben smirks, just for a second. She thinks, things will probably never be innocent between them ever again.

"If you insist." 

The cloak glides through the air like a phantom and lands over Rey's head, turning everything dark. It smells like Ben: sweat and orange gorse and stress. She chuckles as she pulls it off. 

The lack of garment gives him a bit more shape, makes him look a bit more human. He doesn't look like  _Kylo Ren_ anymore. Kylo Ren was big, all-consuming. Ben is not.

(Rey hasn't thought of him as Kylo Ren in years. Kylo Ren died in the throne room, in the hut on Ahch-To when their hands touched and their hearts poured into each other.)

"There you go," she says, soft, eyes full of light. "Much better."

Ben says nothing, just huffs with genuine laughter and sits at the foot of the makeshift bed against the wall—two crates covered in a fathier-fur rug. His head naturally falls onto Rey's lap and her hands thread through his hair, slow, soothing strokes. His eyes flutter closed. He looks so much younger.

They could honestly sit like this for hours. Rey could spend all day like this, tracing shapes on his scalp.

 

Even though there is no more dark energy circling around them, there is no light either. She realises it after her thoughts wander to last night, and the feeling of his lips trailing down her inner thigh, right hand rubbing slowly on her hip—

Ben shifts.  _Stop thinking so loud._

She gives his hair a little warning tug.  _Stop listening._

He goes a little red, but opens his eyes ever so slightly. "What were you thinking about before? I saw the dark, for a second."

"Yeah," she sighs. "Normally I can always feel the light, no matter where we are. Even when we faced that tribe last night, or the Rakghouls on Taris. The light's always there to help me through. But now?" She shakes her head. "Can you feel anything?"

Ben stills for a second. "Nothing."

"I can still feel the Force," she continues. It is running through her veins still, a silky river of power she can tap in to at any moment. "But I can't feel any pull. Dark, light. It doesn't have a side here anymore."

"Perhaps that's a good thing," Ben says. 

She looks down at him, confused. "What's the Force without alignment, though?" The idea of it feels like a bad, unfamiliar taste on her tongue.

The expression in his eyes gives her chills. "That sounds like heaven," he says. "A Force without judgement. Without a set of rules or a code to follow. Without restrictions. You could do what you want, use the methods you want and not feel likeyour soul is pulling itself apart." He sounds distant, wistful. He has clearly dreamt of this concept before. "A happy medium."

"You think that's possible?"

Ben shrugs. His shoulders brush against her knees. "I think it is more natural than what it is now. People are not either black or white."

And Rey nods. It is a small, casual agreement but it sends ripples out through their bond, through the Force. People on Coruscant probably feel it. "It's not binary," she says. "We aren't droids."

 

Ben's head sinks deeper into Rey's lap. "We've been travelling for so long," he murmurs. "I have forgotten what it was like before. The little things, you know? The things you don't realise you miss. Corellian apples. Hoi-broth. The way the sun fell over Hanna City."

"And you say you liked life in the stars," she grumbles, but then she pulls him into the last few clear memories she has left. They aren't expansive but they're hers. Sandstorms, silver seas. Soft shadows over D'Qar. Poe drunkenly singing a song on the Falcon, voice smoky and rich. She pulls him in and they watch together, calm and at peace for the first time in as long as she can remember.

 

-

 

Time, then, to quit reminiscing valuable days away. Before, it was okay, they weren't exactly in a hurry to go anywhere, but now they have somewhere to be. 

Corellia calls to Rey in her dreams. 

It calls to Ben, too.

 

The sun begins to set and the temperature sinks; it is cool enough to set out on foot across the sand. The blood moon peeks its head over the horizon, turns the ground to carnelian.

"I can't believe," Ben groans, "we ran out of fuel on a planet that is almost entirely desert."

"There isn't even an outpost," Rey says, scrunching her nose. "The desert isn't that bad to live in."

They've been walking for too long. Their feet hurt and all they can see is orange, orange expanding into forever.

Ben stops on his heels and turns. Sand flies up behind him. "Let's go back to the ship."

Rey peers at him. "And do what? It won't go anywhere without fuel."

He's thinking about something. Rey tries to see for herself like the nosy mare she is, but she's too tired and too damn thirsty to concentrate for long enough. 

His eyes start gleaming. "I've had an idea."

 

-

 

There's just enough fuel left in the tank for the dashboard to light up. Some of the lights flicker wearily but Rey asks the Force for backup and it seems to buy them an extra minute or two.

The commlink crackles.

 _Ben,_ she calls him through the bond, thunderous. He comes running into the cockpit like a raging Choku.

The air goes taut as they wait; a voice is struggling through from lightyears away, a voice they both know.

 

_This is General Leia Organa broadcasting from the Resistance Base on Corellia. Requesting any and all replies from active ships in the Outer Rim Territories. This message will be relayed at midday of the next day-cycle._

 

Rey hits the button before Ben can blow it up again. Her legs have suddenly gone very wobbly.

"General?" she whispers, clears her throat, says it again. Ben is stone-faced beside her. His Force signature goes berserk in his chest. 

Static leeches into the air for an endless few seconds, before _—_

 _Rey_ , Leia's voice says, from across the galaxy.

Suddenly she is a lost little girl again on Jakku. Suddenly she is sleeping in an AT-AT, pouring sand out of an old pilot helmet. Groping unconsciously in the night for somebody who isn't there.

Tears are welling up in her eyes, creeping down her cheeks. "Oh, General," she breathes. "You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice again."

Leia sounds older, wiser. She sounds like she has survived another war.  _Rey,_ she says again, amazed.  _Rey. Thank the stars. We thought we'd lost you._ Then _—_ _No, that's not true. We always knew you were out there, somewhere._

 

"And we, you," Rey says. "Please tell me you are still on Corellia."

 _We are_ , she confirms.  _The Resistance is based in the Corellian Security Force Academy, right in the centre of the governmental sector of Coronet City. It was abandoned by the officials a few years into the war, but it has bunks and 'freshers and enough tinned food to feed a cantina of hungry pilots._ Her laugh sounds like actual magic trickling through the HoloNet. Rey can't help but laugh too.

"That's good to know. I think I've forgotten what a 'fresher is."

Her chuckle _—_ stars, Rey wants to hear it on repeat for the rest of her life.  _There's one waiting for you here. With a fresh bunk and a hot bowl of Alderaan stew._

A taste appears on Rey's tongue: meaty, spiced. It tastes like home.

"We need to get there first," she says.

_Where are you?_

"Um _—_ somewhere on Honoghr." The navigation system is a tiny computer disc with nondescript red shapes. It is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. "The ship made planetfall last night but our fuel meter is practically subzero _—_ "

 _Honoghr?_ Leia's voice rattles down in bits, alarmed. 

"Unfortunately." Rey's mouth is a tight line. "The aim was to follow Hydian Way but it turns out a ship doesn't fly very far without some hypermatter in its tank."

_I see. Does your ship have a hyperdrive?_

The lever is dented but as trusty as ever. "It does. We seem to be the only ship in this sector so hyperspace has been relatively smooth. Oh, General, this ship was such a lucky find. It's a Star Commuter, like the ones we used to use. I forgot just how sturdy they are, they really do glide once the compressor loosens a bit _—_ " She trails off, going red at her own excitement. "But like I said. It's stuck here."

 _We can come to you,_ Leia suggests. Rey can practically see the General rolling up her sleeves, assembling the troops.

"No, no," Rey says, a little too quickly. She doesn't quite know why the idea is so unappealing. Maybe it's the thought of the Resistance putting themselves in danger for her yet again. Maybe it's the thought of being separated from _—_

Ah yes, Ben.

He is still beside her, pale. His end of the bond is closed.

She watches him carefully; it takes her a few seconds to see if he is breathing. She does not relax until she catches the rise and fall of his shoulders. "It's okay, General. Stay safe where you are. I'll come to you. Remind me of where you're based again."

 _The Corellian Security Force Academy,_ Leia repeats. And then, with a knowing quirk,  _my son will know where it is._

 

Leia kriffing Organa. 

No wonder the world bowed to her.

 

Static swallows the message whole and the signal drops. Ben has backed away into the corner of the cockpit.

He hasn't been this terrified since he was seventeen, and bringing a temple down in flames.

 

-

 

"Ben," Rey says. She is sitting on a passenger seat at the back of the ship, drinking lukewarm caf. "Can I have a word?"

He blinks. "Of course." His muscles are tense, he is still shaken from the message.

"I don't know how to get to Corellia if we don't take Hydian Way," she tells him. "And our nav system is a steaming pile of Bantha crap." 

Ben takes a deep breath. He knows where she is going with this.

"Why would we not take Hydian Way?" he asks. It is a challenge to which he already knows the answer.

Rey swallows, sets her jaw. "I don't want to go back to Taris." 

His eyes soften in sympathy, and perhaps understanding _—_ dawn seeps into them. "It wasn't your fault, you know. What happened there." He reaches over for her hand and Rey is thankful that even after everything, he doesn't feel different. His skin still feels the same.

"I know you know another way to Corellia. I don't care how long it takes."

"You will when we're in our forties and lost somewhere in the Unknown Regions," he counters. "I don't know about you but I don't think I can take another Sith-aligned planet. I don't think I am strong enough."

"Yes, you are _—_ "

He smiles at her, weak, like sunshine through a grimy window on a winter's day. "No, I'm not," he says. "I need time to figure out where I lie, what I can take. I need time away from the dark. And so do you,  _pateesa_. There is too much conflict in the both of us to survive another slip."

She is crying, again. All she seems to do these days is cry. "But Taris _—_ I never meant to _—_ "

"Rey," he says, soft. "You are the reason my mother is still alive. You are the reason  _I_ am still alive. Never forget that."

 

Back to Ben's idea, why they came to the ship in the first place.

They are stood in the heart of the vessel. Ben extends his hands to her, palms upwards. She takes them without hesitation.

"Trust me," he says. "Follow my lead."

Rey thinks _—_ scratch that, she  _knows_ she would follow him to the ends of the universe and back.

He closes his eyes and touches the Force; it whirs to life, intrigued. Rey feels it in her limbs, white-hot: power, raw power. It swells and builds and oh, stars, she will never tire of this.

 

From the belly of the hull, the engine churns as if brand new. 

The lights above their heads illuminate and shower them in bright rays, harsh and unnatural. Rey whips her eyes down to the cockpit, sees the multi-coloured lights of the dash and then back to Ben, who is positively glowing _._ "Did you just _—_ "

He shrugs one shoulder. The corner of his mouth turns up. "I thought it was worth a shot."

 

-

 

Rey used to flee, sometimes, when there were too many people. It is a survivor's instinct.

She doesn't want to flee anymore. She is tired of running. It feels nice to have a destination in mind, a pinpoint in space to tuck next to her heart and feel the warmth of.

 

"It shouldn't take us too long, General," Rey says, into the commlink. Her voice echoes through space, ricocheting off two asteroid belts and a crashed Star Destroyer.

From Corellia, Leia sighs into the microphone.  _It's okay. Take your time._

Hope feels pretty much the same as she remembers it does. It smells the same. The feeling is just as light in Rey's chest.

 _Am I to expect the both of you?_ The General adds, with a break in the professionalism. Her voice heightens, dizzy with hope. 

Ben looks at her, with clear eyes. She thinks that perhaps, nobody will ever see her better than Ben does. 

Then he leans into the microphone and says, "Yes." Says, "You can expect us both."

 

They fly into hyperspace. The universe blurs and Rey leans back in her seat, smiles to herself. Hydian Way stretches ahead of them like a promise being made.

 

-

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Planets: [Taris](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Taris/Legends), [Wayland](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Wayland/Legends), [Halmad](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Halmad/Legends), [Honoghr](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Honoghr/Legends), [Corellia](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Corellia/Legends)
> 
> [Rakghouls](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rakghoul) and [their plague](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rakghoul_plague)
> 
> [Yuuzhan Vong](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Yuuzhan_Vong) and [amphistaffs](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Amphistaff)
> 
>  
> 
> [Planet-hoppers](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Planet-hopper)
> 
>  
> 
> [Principles of Rajivari](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Principles_of_Rajivari)
> 
>  
> 
> [Ossus Project](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ossus_Project)
> 
>  
> 
> [Shimrra Jamaane](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Shimrra_Jamaane), a Yuuzhan leader killed by Luke Skywalker
> 
>  
> 
> [Vongsense](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Vongsense)
> 
>  
> 
> [Hydian Way](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hydian_Way/Legends)
> 
>  
> 
> [Rojio's bar](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rojio's) and its star beverage, [Halmad Prime](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Halmad_Prime)
> 
>  _Min larel_ = "my love" in [Olys Corellisi](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Olys_Corellisi%22) (Old Correlian)
> 
>  
> 
> [Star Commuter 2000](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Commuter_2000)
> 
>  
> 
> [Peggats](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Peggat), a form of currency used by the Hutts
> 
> [Rakata](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rakata) and their [temple on Honoghr](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Honoghr_Rakatan_temple)
> 
>  
> 
> [Choku](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Choku)
> 
> -
> 
> follow me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/bartonholla) and [tumblr](http://turnerkanes.tumblr.com) ya dicks


	2. and back it slid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> looks like we're doing three chapters now cause i have zero self control :))) 
> 
> contains: angst. lots of angst. also bed-sharing to make up for all the angst. you're welcome.

 

 

-

 

When the Resistance first gets news of Taris, they don't really know what to do.

 

They were gathered together in the belly of the Falcoln. Everybody—the generals hard-faced, arms folded. Rey stood somewhere to the side and Ben was in the corner, face turned to the floor. He could feel the hatred in the air; it gave him a headache.

"Taris has," Leia had begun, "a turbulent history." A blue hologram of the planet crackled in the midst of them. "It experienced a civil war in the early years which ruined its economy and segregated its population. Conquered by Darth Revan during the Jedi Civil War, then bombed flat by Darth Malak in 3956BY."

Rey felt her eyes widen. It was so long ago. She sometimes forgot how old the Jedi were, the Sith. How much history stirred behind Snoke's eyes, how much that they'd seen.

Leia continued. "The rakghouls inhabited the Undercity." She swiped the hologram; a grotesque creature appeared, teeth bared. "Nobody quite knows how the plague reached Taris but it was likely Sith activity. The plague is—particularly dangerous. It spreads through the merest of contact. Bites, yes, but also scratches. If a rakghoul claw manages to break skin—"

She trailed off. 

"I'm guessing there isn't a cure," Poe had said. The war had aged him. He'd gone grey at the edges and in the wrong light he looked haggard, worn out.

Leia sighed. "There was."

"Was—?" Finn prompted.

"There were several," Leia said. "The rakghouls developed immunity every time."

The air grew so heavy. Nervous energies sparked off of everybody; Rey could see them, like flint against metal. There were silent conversations happening in the quickest of looks, a war's worth of fear.

Poe lifted his chin. "But they're mortal."

(Rey thanked the stars for Poe every day; his tenacity, his strength.

He didn't deserve to go like he did.)

It imbued them with hope, just those few words. Leia set her jaw and looked like a leader again, just for a moment. "They are."

"Well then," he said, standing tall. "That means we can beat them."

 

It was that fleeting hope, that bottled spark. It stayed with them as they soared through hyperspace, it kept their hearts beating for just a little while longer.

They touched down on Taris at exactly halfway through the day-cycle. The sun was up, the buildings lay in tatters around them. Blood was pooling in the streets like rainwater.

 

-

 

**iv. corsin**

 

 

The planet of Corsin is located just past Taris on the Hydian Way, if one is following the route to Coruscant. It's a small, unimportant world in the midst of the Expansion Regions, conquered by everybody at some point in history, a tropical hotspot amongst a sea of deserts. Only humans had inhabited the makeshift cities when the darkness came; they'd escaped to the Core, seeking refuge, seeking safety. Corsin was left to sit. Nature was left to reclaim what it once owned.

 

They land on a beach. It doesn't feel like a beach—it is all pebbles, round and smoothed by the tide. They feel wobbly beneath Rey's feet.

"Please tell me you know anything about this planet," she says. Green stretches out into the distance like some unfinished story, the air smells like salt and it feels  _fresh_. It's been a while since she's felt fresh air on her face; everything so far has been ash and death, suspended like spirits above their heads.

Ben doesn't reply. He is stood at the join of water and land, watching it lap around his feet.

It makes her smile. "When was the last time we saw the sea?"

"Aquaris," he says. Ah, yes. The planet on which they'd been chased by a demonsquid in a stolen aqua-skimmer, red-faced with salt spray. 

Rey smirks—despite the nearly dying part, it's a fond memory. They'd held onto each other the entire time and Rey had laughed so loud, she had felt so free for the first time in years at the hands of the ocean and the wind in her hair.

Ben hears her thoughts and looks up. "You miss it," he says. A statement, not a question.

"Only a little," she shrugs. "Every planet we go to has something new."

There's a quiet, wandering awe to her voice that makes Ben's heart flutter, ever so slightly; it echoes in Rey's chest, through the tunnels of the bond. "I always thought I was well-travelled," he admits. "It turns out I'd barely seen a fraction of what the galaxy has to offer."

Rey blinks. "I didn't know the galaxy existed. I thought the world ended at Niima Outpost."

The sky is a beautiful, shimmering blue. Clouds did not exist in Jakku's arid atmosphere but here they are plentiful, dotted amongst the background like far-away fairytales. 

"Is it everything you hoped for?" he asks—wincing, he adds, "I know it's not—the best of circumstances."

It's a big question. Rey pulls her hair back from her eyes and lets out a long, relaxed breath. "I'll never see what it was like before. But maybe that's a blessing. I don't know—I get to fly around in a busted ship with—well, with you." The air feels cool on her skin, the back of her neck.

Ben is peering at her, head tilted a little. "That would have felt like damnation a few years ago."

He isn't wrong. But that was a few years ago, and this is now: they have both grown, both blossomed. There is steel in her core where there was once porcelain. "What can I say," she says, and her voice is light and teasing. "I've grown used to you."

 

Corsin feels different from their previous conquests; there is a lightness to the air, a summer breeze that makes Rey feel at home. It is Jakku without the harshness, or Wayland without the sense of impending doom everywhere she looked. 

The city is relatively untouched. No toppled infrastructure, no crashed speeders. Wisps of thorn-vine wraps themselves around lightposts and door handles, a distant reminder of Yuzhaan Vong marching through the streets like AT-ATs rolling through. Rey pokes Ben when she spots it. He sucks his teeth and says, _looks like we missed the fun_.

Something tightens in her belly—the so-called  _fun_ , the smell of it.

She wonders if there is anywhere left in the galaxy that is truly free. Perhaps somewhere in the Unknown Regions: a civilised universe, continuing to live. Blissfully unaware of all the chaos unfolding just a hyper-jump away.

("We will likely never know," Ben tells her while they sit beneath a canopy, cool in the shade. 

Rey takes a bite from a jogan fruit and scrunches up her nose. "I hate the not knowing," she says. "Back on Jakku—it wasn't paradise, but at least I was ignorant. I didn't yearn for what I couldn't have, what I couldn't see."

Ben tries not to scoff. They are so  _different_ ; it amazes him, sometimes. "Surely you can't wish to go back to that."

"I wouldn't trade it for the world," she responds. "There's just so  _much_."

"It would take a lifetime and more to see it all." His eyes are fuzzy, light with life. "In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't sound like a bad use of life at all."

She grins to herself—small and private, to the sand. "No," she says, quiet. "It doesn't.")

 

They find Corsin Retreat hiding just behind the swoop track. It's a looming governmental building, gold-trimmed and authoritative. The shadow it casts swallows them up whole.

It has not escaped the conflict of the war. The windows are broken and thorn-vines snake their way in like black ink, like fingers in front of a lightbulb. They are in a bar: the floor is smooth and tiled and the booths padded, caked in dust. The cracks that run up the wall are so perfect they almost feel intentional. Life is humming in the frequency of the Force, in the joints of Rey's bones—it shimmers like heat, in the corners of her vision.

There is no alcohol left, but it doesn't stop Ben for searching.

"You can't blame me," he says when he feels Rey's disapproving look digging into his back. "It's hot. We need some form of hydration."

She rolls her eyes. "Alcohol dehydrates you."

"Might as well enjoy ourselves before we die of thirst, then." 

"I don't think it's thirst that will finish us off," she says, walking over to him. The floor is littered with broken bottles, smashed glass. "Considering how the past few years have gone."

Ben huffs, sets the bottle aside. "I see. I know you can't hold your drink,  _pateesa_ —"

"— _hey_ —"

"—but I never had you down as one to shy away from a challenge."

She enjoys this a little too much—the little games, the way his ears redden like a Tatooine sunset. There is a humanity here which the world seems to be lacking, caught in the fleeting looks and the way his lips curl around a joke.

"Maybe," Rey says, picking up the bottle and pushing it into his chest. Their fingers collide when he goes to catch it. "You just want to dance with me again."

His ears go as red as his lightsaber.

She'll consider this one a victory.

 

(They exist on the fringes of each other's souls: a constant presence, a reoccurring thought.

The jukebox in Rojio's had gotten stuck during their rhythmless dance and played the same Figrin D'an tune on repeat until the notes had burned themselves into Rey's dreams.

They feel like that to her, sometimes.)

 

There are fuel cans in the basement. Full ones. The sun is diamante in its brilliance as it slides in through rectangular windows, wandering spotlights that trap dust in pockets of light. Rey thinks there is probably a reason Ben wanted to land on this planet; here, the shadows are clean.

She's rifling through a storage chest when something springs to life above her head. 

Wings swoop down, brush her ear, snag on her hair buns. It sets her teeth on edge and like lightning she is upright, saber ignited; battle instincts. The young shouldn't have to live like this.

Ben is in the corner. "Rey," he breathes—his voice is neat, sugary concern. "It's just a fruit bat."

"Yeah, yeah," she nods. The saber extinguishes with a smooth hiss. Her hands are shaking. "I know."

 

Her heart is still racing when they leave. Snoke's hands remain around her throat, pressing down to the jugular. In her mind she sees red walls again, sees the fleet being massacred against the dark backdrop of space and Ben's saber lifting, lifting, button on the trigger—

"Do you think," Rey begins, when they are out in the daylight again, "there'll ever come a day where we don't do that?"

Ben's eyes are—very dark. "I don't know."

He sounds honest. It terrifies her.

 

-

 

When they get back to the ship, that spam-bot has sent another message. Ben fills the tank whilst Rey presses the commlink button, her tired heart revelling in the knowledge that somebody out there knows where they are, even if it is just a holo-droid.

It is in an unfamiliar language. Something dark, something ancient. The distortion makes the words barely legible.

_Vexok savaka._

Rey doesn't understand it. Ben does. He goes white and replays it, two times, three times.

"What does it mean?" she frowns.

"It's old Sith," Ben says, shuddering as he does. "Very old. It would have been taught to the apprentices from the Civil War. It means, _wake up_. It's saying, _there is work to do_." 

 

-

 

Ben is restless in the day following that message. It does not surprise either of them: weeks have passed since any encounter with Sithspawn or the dark side, neither of them has felt the dark creeping into their systems or whispering illicit words into their ears. It throws his focus off, leaves him feeling dull and witless as a stormtrooper awaiting his next mission. Cogs are turning, tightening his jaw. His Force signature is this volatile little ball of energy in his chest.

He avoids Rey too. Unlike her, he is used to the Dark Side and its hold—he remembers what he does, everything he has done. The villagers on Tuanul, begging for their lives.

They don't leave the ship all day. Night falls early; in the depths of his memory, Snoke tells him,  _you're just a child in a mask._

 

Rey can hear it all. He is asleep, his defences are down. She is free to submerge herself in the bond like a baptism.

There is a tangle of voices in his head; all of them are deep, raspy, evil. All of them make her stomach knot. 

 

The commlink crackles, all of a sudden.

She presses the button, expecting another spam-bot soliloquy or perhaps a message ratting around the HoloNet, picked up by their receiver but then a voice pokes through the static. It's soft and silky and friendly and—

Kriffing hell.

She has to ask the Force if this is really happening. Two dark brown eyes smile back at her from lightyears away.

_This is Finn of the "Reb" squadron of the Resistance, requesting response from Shuttle ST-15 on the planet—I mean, kriff knows where you are. Leia said you left Honoghr so you could be anywhere by now—_

Rey doesn't think she's ever moved so fast in her life.

"Finn." Her finger scrabbles for the button. She is shaking; every bone in her body is vibrating. "Finn, yes, this is us. It's Rey. It's _me_."

A few seconds of silence and then his laugh bursts through the comm, that beautiful laugh that made everybody swoon and it has been so, so long; it has been too long, it has been lifetimes since Rey was here, with this friend, hearing this voice. It has been millennia since Rey pressed her hand to her heart and said,  _you'll be in here forever_. She owes so much to Finn. He brought her the world; he brought chaos, and the First Order and a little BB-8 droid with orange accents to her door and she didn't realise that he had brought the world but she soon did. He was the first friend she ever made.

 _Rey_. The stars shine a little brighter.  _Karking hell._

She thinks, that sums it up pretty well.

 

They talk for hours.

 _So,_ Finn asks,  _when are you coming to Corellia?_

"I don't know." Her voice has that briskness it adopts when she's trying to hide her nerves. "The universe seems to be working against us at the moment. We're always out of fuel or something in the engine breaks, or there's an army of creatures trying to take our heads off."

He picks up on the  _us_ , the  _we._ Rey has been saying it for so long, it feels natural; they are a pair now, two halves of each other. Rey-and-Ben. Ben-and-Rey.  _He's treating you okay, though? I mean, you know, he's not **—**_

Rey can't help but laugh. "We're fine. It's quite—" She hesitates. "It's starting to take its toll, I think. He's done well to last this long, honestly. He's strong. I would have slipped a long time ago."

Finn doesn't know the Force. He doesn't understand.

 _I mean, he was a— a Sith, right?_ It's dated knowledge; found in old books in the storerooms of the Falcon, late-night boredom reads.

She blinks. "No, he was never— no." Then, "it's a long story."

 _Fair enough,_ he says.  _You_ could  _tell it me. At home._

"Corellia is home now?" Rey doesn't really know what counts as home anymore. Jakku was home, the Falcon was home. Ben is home—the closest she'll ever come, now.

_Not to sound cheesy, but anywhere is home where we're all together._

The tears start. Just—quiet little sobs. Her vision blurs and her fingers crave Corellian soil, under her fingernails, the smell of the earth. She has never been to Corellia but she can see it now: the golden beaches, the dips and contours of the Denendre Valley, the blue snow on the peak of Dregan's Pike—

"We're coming," she says affirmatively, into the comm. Her voice sounds sure. "I promise."

 

After they say their goodbyes, Rey leaves the cockpit with her head bowed and bumps into Ben.

His hands drop to her shoulders, to steady her. He looks tired. The bond flairs to life with the contact, and his eyes glisten as he feels everything: her relief, her excitement. The loneliness she hasn't felt since she was a child and watching a ship disappear into the distance.

"Were you—did you listen in on all that?" she frowns, indignant. 

Through the bond, she hears his apology. Not just for that but for everything, for dragging her into this exile. For everything he has ever done—and everything he will continue to do. It bowls her over, the blackness of it.

His hands stay on her arms. He says, "Let's go for a walk."

 

-

 

The Tinn'lyi islands exist on the horizon like a daydream. They used to house the Tinn'lyi nation but the environment, like everywhere nowadays, stands empty as if never inhabited. It gives Rey the creeps, sometimes: how the galaxy would look if humans had never existed. How many languages would still exist, how many species would still thrive if it hadn't been for the Sith and the Jedi, and the cool wave of the Force sweeping over planets like a curse.

It is mid-night-cycle, the stars are awake. The lack of moon means lack of currents, so the sea stretches out in all directions, dark and still. 

 

"You're very quiet," Rey says, into the breeze. Crickets chirp inharmoniously as if punctuating her point.

Ben doesn't reply. She doesn't probe the bond for fear of retaliation, so her mouth works instead. "I've been brushing up on my Civil War history. It never really occurred to me how the Rebellion got hold of the Death Star plans and knew how to blow it up—I always thought Luke got lucky, like the Force told him what to do. I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But then I was messing around on the HoloNet, trying to see if any ships were nearby and I came across some sort of anniversary celebratory—thing. I never realised: it's 40ABY. It's been forty years since the Battle of Scarif."

His nose scrunches. The Force flickers as if glitching.

"It was a suicide mission," she continues. "They closed the shield gate before anybody could get out. I can't imagine that. Going into battle, going to a planet  _knowing_ I was going to die."

"You have already done that so many times." Ben's voice is dry, sketchy. "Every time you have thrown yourself in front of a saber or fought head-on with a ship."

She glares at him. He has the grace to look abashed. "That isn't bravery. Those were my duties. I had to do those to survive."

He almost  _snorts_. "You faced down Snoke—you faced down  _Palpatine_ with nothing but an old lightsaber and a blind faith in the Force. I would hardly call that cowardly."

Rey frowns; is that bravery? It doesn't quite compute in her head, not really. The fight with Palpatine, the rush on Jaguada with teeth bared and a hum of death in the air, the Force moulding itself around her body, carrying her limbs forwards and backwards, the swing of its atoms around the weapon—that wasn't brave. That was just  _her_.

Her and Ben.

"You were brave," she says, quietly.

The air shivers. "Hardly."

"You  _were_." Her shoulder bumps his; for a second, she sees sparks. "You defied everybody's expectations, including mine. And your mother's. The way you defected, the way we fought— Ben, you have no idea."

He looks uncomfortable, like he's choking on the compliment. It occurs to Rey that maybe he isn't used to them. "It was nothing."

" _Ben._ " His eyes meet hers. Rey feels small again, young and brash and full of fear in the Supremacy's elevator, the heat curling through them.

Then he looks away and resumes something mechanical, something distant. "It was Jyn Erso who transmitted the Death Star plans to the Rebellion in the end. She timed it amazingly. The planet was annihilated mere moments afterwards, and Orson Krennic died at the hands of his own superweapon. Rather poetic, when you think about it."

"Poetic is a grim take on it."

"Her father had been kidnapped by the Empire when she was a child. There's every chance that, if he hadn't had implanted such a failsafe, the galaxy would likely still be under Empire rule now." Then, a pointed: " _that's_ bravery."

"She was following in his footsteps," Rey considers. She tips her face up to the sky, curiosity blending into wistfulness. "That's one kriff of a destiny to fulfil."

There is a curtness to Ben's tone when he responds; he sounds like he is afraid of giving anything away. Rey doesn't look at him but knows exactly what he looks like now, every line that has appeared in his face. "There is no such thing as destiny. We forge our own paths."

"You don't believe that," she says. "You thought it was your destiny to be like your grandfather."

"I did. Then you came along and threw a spanner in the works." The hilt at her side feels heavy all of a sudden. Heavy with all the life it's taken. Souls whisper to her from inside the kyber. "Snoke connected the navpoints for me but it all came crashing down on Starkiller. When we were in my chamber and you fought back—I'd never felt that before."

His hand is on the earth between them, gloved. Rey takes it and holds it like it's a fallen star.

"When you surrendered to us on Jaguada, you weren't planning on staying around for your trial, were you?" she asks point-blank. Not long after Palpatine's death she had seen the ghost of plans formulating through the bond, messy and incongruent but there, fuelled by fear. "You were going to steal an escape pod and run. You didn't even know where you were going to go. You knew the First Order was planning a coup, but nowhere in the galaxy was going to accept the Supreme Leader with open arms. So you stayed."

"I didn't—" he begins, hoarsely. "Not because of—it wasn't— what are you even still doing here, Rey?"

She blinks. "You suggested a walk."

"I mean  _here_. By my side, still. You could have left years ago."

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" Her fingers are digging into his wrist, her thumb is tracing circles on the back of his hand. It surprises her just how little they have really spoken about everything that has happened. About the world, the apocalypse, they have bared their open hearts. But not the past. It is this dangerous, wild-eyed corner of their minds which daren't be opened for fear of what might come out. "Something changed inside of me the day you killed Snoke, the same thing that happened to me on Honoghr when those Yuuzhan attacked. The same thing that keeps happening to you. I felt the dark side. And—I remember thinking, more than anything, that I understood. I understood why you did what you did: all of it." She lifts her free hand, palm turned upwards. Little blue cracks snap into existence—miniature lightning strikes, gone in a blink. "I don't know why. But I knew then, and I know now, that I can't commit myself to the light in the same way that Luke did. Just like you can't commit yourself to the dark."

Slowly, Ben sighs. "That middle ground. It feels like no-being's land."

"Perhaps it is," she whispers. "It hasn't been tread for centuries."

"It scares me." His cheeks flush at the confession. There's a little boy lost in his eyes, being told by Han Solo to  _chill out, kid_. 

Rey blinks. "You seemed more than ready to abandon it all after Snoke. You held out your hand and offered me the universe."

"From where I stood, I saw you take on those guards with such ferocity. It was the first time in my life everything felt so smooth—we synced up like droids. I remember thinking you were the most dangerous thing I'd ever seen. The most beautiful." His eyes are pools in the moonlight, warm and rich. "You truly are both."

She doesn't expect the tension to evaporate the way it does. Her shoulders loosen, every muscle in her body relaxes and swell. "It's possible now, you know," she says. "Starting again."

"It is," he agrees. He reaches up and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "All it took was for the universe to implode."

"You asked me why I'm still here," she says. "I'm still here because there is a part of me that knows what I'm capable of. I decided to stay because I think me and you—we were meant to do this. I think it's time for us to stop running." She takes a deep breath. "I think it's time for us to go home."

 

-

 

"What," Rey says, extending a finger, "is  _that_."

A creature is making its way along the shore, a blurred silhouette in fuzzy twilight. It clomps forward on thick legs and swings a trunk back and forth, prodding the sand for food.

Ben peers into the distance. The Force enhances his vision, brings everything into bright technicolour. "I think it's a selligore."

"What in the blazes—" It's an elephant-looking thing, smooth grey skin with pink, scaly wings below its ears. It looks like a strange hybrid, something Rey would have dreamed up after too much Ergesh rum. 

"They're pretty harmless," he says. "It'll be too preoccupied with finding plankton to step on you."

She frowns up at him. "Excuse me?"

He's—he's actually smiling, for the first time in a while. This little mischievous smirk that looks so much like Han Solo, it makes Rey do a double-take. "Go on. Or I can whistle it over, it's up to you, really."

"I'm not touching it," she says, indignant. Her arms fold across her chest like a petulant teenager. "It'll wrap me up in its stupid little trunk and squeeze the life out of me."

A swell of energy balloons behind her; suddenly she is floating, gliding across the sand, leaving no trails. The selligore senses her as she nears; its ears prick up with interest. "You absolute _mudlicker_ ," she calls back. Ben's laugh is an irritating—but welcome—song.

 

The creature has big black eyes, perfectly circular. It stares blankly at Rey as she feels her feet hit the ground.

She'd be lying if she were to say she isn't fretting; every experience they have had for the past five years with other living beings has always resulted in some sort of blood spilt, of theirs or her own. But there is no energy emanating, no blackened Force signature sparking like a broken crystal. She just feels peace.

The selligore's skin is cold beneath her hand. She strokes its trunk and it makes a delighted little noise at her touch.

"Hello," she whispers. "You don't have a clue about anything that's going on, do you?" Its wings—or are they fins?—flutter as if soothing an itch. "Nope, you don't. You're just—living your life. Wondering where all the scary humans have gone and what happened to them. It's probably not a bad thing." She thinks of Rose, of the stories she told of Canto Bight and the faithers recoiling beneath the lash of a whip. "You're probably loving every moment."

She flinches as it moves, but relaxes when she realises it's redirecting her hand to between its eyes, down the line of its nose. "Do you have a family? I hope so. I hope the fighting didn't take them away from you. Crazy humans. We're very sorry. None of us ever meant for it to turn out like this. You're the real victims of this war."

 

From a few feet away, Ben senses the remorse like a punch to the gut. It's these little fleeting moments that put everything into perspective: the destruction of it all, the scorched bodies. The planets reduced to wasteland and the corpses, nameless rotting to dust.

 

-

 

The next day, when the sun has risen and the sky tangerine, they take an abandoned swoop bike that Ben finds on the old track to the east side, to see if anywhere is hiding supplies missed by the first panicked rush of civilians from the planet. It is a cold, industrial area; there is an air of the New Order lingering in the brickwork like a bad smell. The oppression is tangible, Rey can taste it on her tongue: salt and worry, the raw skin of hands worked down to the bone.

It feels—different. Energy is present here. 

Something is nearby.

"Ben," she warns, hand already on the hilt of her saber. He is mirroring her, poised like an arrow. 

He breathes, "I know." 

She is so sick of living like this.

 

It turns out that their presence has been equally sensed. Rey is exploring the hollow shell of a ground-floor motel when she hears footsteps, swivels around with every sense dialled up to eleven and—

" _Achuta_ ," a grizzled old Twi'lek says. It stands in the doorway, blocking out the light. It takes Rey about three seconds too long to realise there is a loaded Blaster being pointed directly at her chest.

Panic flairs. How long has it been since she even spoke to another sentient being that isn't human?

Rey lifts her hands, scrabbles for whatever scraps of Huttese that have stayed with her through years on non-use. " _Ap-xmasi keepuna!_ " The Force tightens around her limbs, ready to strike if needed. " _Dolpee kikyuna._ "

The Twi'lek narrows its eyes. " _Kee chai chai cun kuta? Hi chuba da naga?_ "

Ben runs in at that moment. She channels a message down the bond and suddenly he is there, blinked into existence as if an apparition. The Twi'lek doesn't have time to respond before its Blaster is floating three feet above its head, before the chamber has unloaded itself and the bullets rain musically to the floor. Rey winces— _not exactly the first impression I was going for_. 

" _Jeedai_?" Bewildered eyes fly back and forth between the pair, more confused than scared. 

Rey shakes her head. " _Nobata. Jee-jee are—are—_ people."

The Twi'lek looks at her as if captivated. The Blaster shudders slightly in the light. "People," it repeats. The word tastes funny on its tongue.

She nods, encouraging. The war wiped out all of the Jedi. It strikes her at that moment, right there in that crappy little motel, that she never wants to be known as a Jedi ever again.

 

The group of survivors live in a nearby warehouse. The dust is an inch thick and the windows are grimy, cobwebs cling to every surface but they have somehow managed to make it beautiful: ropes of glow-lamps are strung up from corner to corner and a fire is crackling in a rusted barrel. 

Rey doesn't remember what home looks like, but she thinks it might be something like this.

" _Wata_ ," the Twi'lek says, nudging the door open. When Rey and Ben walk in, three things become immediately apparent:

One, it is not just them that have forgotten what other people look like.

Two, they have forgotten how to speak every language in the galaxy.

Three, they are really kriffing hungry.

Four pairs of eyes all freeze and observe them. Yellow Baragwin slits, heavy Lurrian eyebrows, the beady medicinal gaze of a Carosite. A true arrangement of species peppered around like a strange recipe, united in the one common trait that they have all lasted this long.

Rey is clinging onto Ben's arm. He is solid and warm and safe; the tallest in the room by a foot, commanding the light to turn to him.

"Does anybody speak Basic?" he asks. "Our Huttese is superficial at best."

The Lurrian in the back pipes up. He has the most beautiful green eyes, huge like lilypads and jungles and Emerald wine. It is a well-known fact throughout the galaxy that the Lurrians were peace lovers, talented scientists with a long history of being exploited like everything truly precious in this world. "We do," he says. "Or I do, at least. Forgive me. I haven't spoken Basic in years."

 

Despite Ben's little Force trick earlier, they are offered hot food and a bed for the night. Hoi-broth, spicy and pungent. They wolf it down without a thought for manners and gleefully accept seconds _—_ well, Rey does. Ben is more prudish about it. Blame being raised by literal royalty. 

 

There is _—_  of course _—_ only one bed. Five years ago it would have bothered them. They'd have fought over who got the floor and who got the ditched mattress but now they are _—_ whatever they are, and they don't care. In fact, they are grateful for it. Rey has always slept better with Ben beside her.

They end up crammed together. It takes a while to get comfortable but they soon reach a compromise: his arm around her waist, her head pillowed on the length of his outstretched arm. As their heartbeats slow, Rey feels him bury his face into the slope of her neck, breathe in the scent of war and dirt. He's tired of fighting, tired of wanting, tired of being afraid that any wrong movement could mean the end of everything they have. All she has to do is dip into the contented sigh of the bond to let him know that she feels the same.

 _This feels nice_ , she sends him.

He stirs and plants kisses down her neck _,_ more reassuring than heated. She presses closer to him and they stay like that until the dawn seeps through the windows in languid, rosy stripes.

 

-

 

The wind is rough today, strong and biting. The warehouse is a sturdy, boxy building but it rattles with every gust, cold air blowing through the cracks.

It is early. Rey moves closer to Ben for warmth _—_ she tries to be subtle about it at first, but they can never hide anything from each other and soon enough she has turned around so she is facing him, their fronts touching, his big arms wrapped around her. She abandons all pretence, gratefully burying into him. He rolls his eyes but doesn't let go.

The morning passes in quiet conversation. What they are going to do, where they are going to go. How good the food was last night. They need to create a plan because they are not creatures of habit, they do not want to stay long. Corellia is waiting for them with bated breath.

"Your mother mentioned that there are fewer reports of Sithspawn activity in the Core, even though the Resistance isn't fighting them," she says. "They're going into hibernation."

"Probably," he replies. "Palpatine has been dead for years now. The war is over, they're retreating back to their caverns and lairs. They'll return when another Dark Side user becomes powerful enough. Trust me, it's just part of the cycle."

"Did you ever think of it as a job?" He turns onto his back, bare-chested beneath the blanket. She curls into his side and traces lazy circles on his arm. "All the planet-hopping, killing them, planet-hopping again. It felt like our duty."

He's silent for a while. Then, "Perhaps."

"It felt right," Rey whispers. She has to keep it quiet so nobody overhears (they are all in one large room, the slightest whispers echo to magnificent volumes) but also because this is theirs, it's their secret. They have kept so many secrets over the years, since before the war. The bond, the feelings. The swelling of desire every time they saw each other, felt but never said. "It felt like we had a purpose, rather than just _—_ aimlessly wandering around the galaxy, looking for something to do." 

"Is that what you want to be?" His free arm is folded behind his head, the other beneath Rey's. "A full-time Sithspawn hunter."

She closes her eyes. "I want to make a difference."

"You have already done so much," he tells her. It is true: the Falcon, Crait. Saving the Resistance from damnation over and over again. Ta _—_ "You can say it," he says, knowingly. "Taris."

The word makes her shiver, still. 

Ben senses it, and grazes her chin with his fingers, cradles her cheek. Strange how someone who has caused so much destruction can be so utterly gentle. "We don't have to think about it anymore."

He lowers his head and his lips find hers, finally,  _at last_. Right there on the sagging mattress in a warehouse on Corsin, beneath a glowing sun and the clouds completing their slow dance in the heavens, watching with a smile.

 

-

 

They drift off again and sleep heavy and late. 

The Lurrian makes breakfast. Just phraig and kavasa fruit and mugs of caf, but it's nice. It's nice because the survivors are nice; they offer extra butter and Byss cheese, the type that Rey likes.

 

"You have history written all over you," the Lurrian says, with a piece of buttered Iktotch toast between this teeth. His fur is a mess and his clothes ragged, but his eyes are as green as ever. "You have done well to survive this long, on your own."

"Not really," Rey says, modest. "We look out for each other."

Ben shrugs, slides a spatula of fried ganza egg onto his plate. "It's always been like that, since the start of the war."

"I see," the Lurrian nods. "Do you have a permanent home or are you constantly on the move?"

The wind hammers the door, whistles like a melody outside. "We're trying to get to Corellia." Rey admits. She has always been wary of strangers, even more so now; Ben is even more suspicious, stiffening beside her. The table reacts with a sympathetic wince:  _you're far from home._

"What's so special about Corellia?"

She feels herself smile. "Our family is there." There is a jerk in the Force, a recoil of feelings; she looks over at Ben and tells him through to bond to stop gritting his teeth. "We didn't know where they were until a few weeks ago, when we picked them up on the commlink. The fact that they're all still alive is a miracle, to be honest. We don't want to waste any time." Her eyes widen. "Not that we aren't grateful for this, of course—this is incredible."

The Lurrian chuckles. He sounds old and wise. "Nobody would get very far without help."

"This has certainly helped," she says. "It was nice to not sleep in the ship for a night. My back's killing me."

"Kobia can help you with that." The Luffian gestures towards the Carosite at the far end of the table, sunlight dancing off his smooth head. "We have T'pala paste. Just mix it in with some blue milk and drink it down in one. It will taste like Bantha mess so I'd recommend you hold your nose." Rey chuckles—years on Jakku has taught her what awful food truly is. 

The Twi'lek is smoking: the warehouse smells like caf and tabac. "We have a ship," it says in accented Basic. "We can drop you off at the nearest outpost."

Ben stirs. "You really don't have to." Then, a bit softer, "you've done enough."

The Lurrian shakes his head. "It's really no trouble. You have a home to get to."

"Home," Rey echoes, subconsciously. She doesn't even realise she's said it until there are five pairs of eyes on her, quizzical. Ben looks like his heart is leaking ever so slightly. "Sorry. I just— _home_. That feels good to say."

"Yeah, it does." There's a strange look in Ben's eyes; one of pride, and morning haziness and softness at the edges. 

The survivors exchange looks amongst themselves. They feel just a bit like spare parts right now.

 

It happens when they are about to leave. The Twi'lek has given them a sack full of food and tinned tauntaun milk and even a bantha fur quilt. They are saying their goodbyes at the door of their Star Commuter when the Baragwin's eyes narrow as if the sun has shone into them, full-blast.

"I knew I recognised you from somewhere," he says, suddenly. His voice is dripping with disgust.

The blood in Rey's veins runs cold. In a far-away memory, Han Solo croons,  _I gotta bad feeling about this._

It is not Rey he is talking about. Those yellow eyes are trained on Ben, on Ben's face and Ben's body and the black hilt of Ben's saber dangling from his waist. Everybody has stilled, turned to ice. "Yes," he continues. "By the jewel of Haarkan. You look different without your mask."

Ben pales. Oh,  _kriff._

 

-

 

"Somebody will see me one day, you know," he had said to her one night, beneath a waning moon. "And they will want my blood."

Rey considered it as she studied the stars. "Perhaps the galaxy is too busy trying to survive to dwell on who you were. We're all doing ugly things to get by."

Ben's face crumpled. "Somebody will see me and they will want revenge."

"Well, if that time comes," she said, weaving her fingers between is, clutching him. "They will have to go through me. They will have to reduce me to ash before they dare lay a finger on what's mine."

 

-

 

"My boys know better than to invite random stragglers into our home," the Baragwin grumbles. He stinks of pond water and rotting flesh. "But random stragglers carrying  _that—_ " He extends a reptilian arm and points to Ben's lightsaber, then his nostrils flare when he notices Rey is wielding one also. He glares at her, accusatory. There is pure, unadulterated hatred breeding behind those eyes.

She says, "we don't want any trouble." Ben says nothing; he is a statue, pale as marble.

"Are you his apprentice?" he snaps at her. It makes her shudder, makes her think about Snoke's throne room and a gloved hand, outstretched. "Were you the one in the silver suit?"

"I understand your anger—" she begins.

" _Anger_ is not the word," he interrupts. The other survivors watch silently, breath held. "There is more than just anger in my heart right now." When she dips into the Force and skims his mind, it takes all her effort not to scream and recoil from the burning redness that swallows her whole, for a split second. It disappears quickly but lingers in front of her eyes, like the hazy imprint left after she stares at the sun for too long.

Rey swallows. "Whatever he did," she treads carefully, "he is not that person anymore."

"I don't believe it," the Baragwin spits. "I don't believe for a second that Kylo Ren has the capacity for change. For that, you need to be sentient. You need to have a soul."

 

Ouch. Rey feels that; she feels it cut deep into the soul that does indeed sit inside Ben Organa-Solo. 

 

It would make sense to kill him. It would make sense to send out a message on the HoloNet to call everybody who has been wronged by Kylo Ren to the planet of Corsin for their chance to enact revenge. 

Neither of those things happen.

They don't happen because Rey closes her eyes and feels the Force rev in her veins like molten fire. When she opens them again, colours are brighter; the blue of the sky, the red of the earth. The green of those beautiful big eyes. The survivors all visibly tighten.

"You are going to let us go," she says. It does not sound like her voice. That familiar feeling is returning, hovering at the edges of her consciousness.

The Baragwin snarls at them. "He is rotten. Rotten to the core."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Rey snaps. Her hand floats to her side, tracing over the lines of her saber hilt. Everybody notices the veiled threat.

"I watched his troopers massacre my homeland. I watched my family die at the hands of a Blaster." He is spitting venom, lashes of it. "Ask the Force why I shouldn't kill him now, with his own weapon."

She takes a step forward. "Because I'll kill you first."

"The Force is bloodthirsty,  _schutta_ ," he says. 

Rey ignites her lightsaber. It extends into the dust, burns a hole into the earth as it crackles with a fury not usually present within the kyber. "So am I."

 

-

 

A few hours later, they are in hyperspace. Just her and Ben, nobody else. The ship rattles like it's about to fall apart.

 

 

Ben is standing at the window, watching lightyears whiz by. A sweat has broken out across his forehead—likely the onset of hyper-rapture—but he doesn't move. The bond is twisted and coiled with unspoken words.

In a tiny storeroom in the back of the commuter, Rey sits cross-legged. Her lightsaber is disassembled, a mess of pieces on the floor. The kyber crystal which has controlled her every movement since that day in Maz Kanata's castle is glowing like a homing beacon in the darkness.

She's trying to make a saberstaff. 

There are no instructions. There is only the Force, guiding her hands and telling her where to unscrew, what to reattach.

A voice in her head says,  _what are you thinking about?_

 _General Grievous_ , she replies. The Jedi hunter.  _The way he'd hold four lightsabers at a time and spin them all, or the way he'd analyze his opponents' combat style and code the perfect algorithm to overwhelm them._

 _Interesting,_ Ben drawls.  _What led to this train of thought?_

The hilt splits in two in her hands.  _I day-dreamt of him earlier. He just appeared in my head._

Through the bond, she feels him grimace.  _That isn't a good sign._

Nothing is ever a good sign nowadays. Rey wonders when the last time was that she could dream and not have to pick it apart for warnings, for some hidden meaning. All those nights on the Falcon, dreaming of Ben in the way of new beginnings and second chances, of a ray of sunlight filtering through the clouds and falling across her hand.

 

He walks in before she has even sensed him approaching. He looks tired, ill. His mind is going at a thousand miles an hour.

"What are  _you_ thinking about?" Rey asks. 

Ben's eyes narrow as if trying to understand an artwork; he says, "Galen Marek." 

Rey shakes her head. "I don't know who that is."

"Darth Vader's apprentice." He sits down opposite her, on the floor. The dust curls and flies into the air with his movement. Shadows fall across his face and make him look gaunt, like he hasn't eaten in days. "He was, um—he defected to the Rebellion and died as a martyr. The rebels adopted his family crest as their symbol, they flew it on their X-Wings."

It is a new story, one which Rey is surprised she hasn't heard before. It is exactly the type of thing Leia would have told her late at night, over hot bantha milk and quinberry cakes. "What made him change his mind?"

Ben sighs. "He fell in love." 

The walls shake. 

When their eyes meet, entire galaxies are born and die in milliseconds. Power, white-hot runs through their limbs. Rey never wanted to know what it felt like to love someone so much she could lose herself along the way, but now she couldn't be without it. Without him, here, his eyes and his mouth and everything falling at the wayside of the slow, steady thrum of his heart.

 

"Are you," she begins, "in love with me?"

It's a big question, loaded. Ben tilts his head and says, "I think I loved you before I even knew you existed. I think, I was destined to find you that day on Takodana." It wouldn't be an understatement to say that the universe has never really been the same since.

A moment passes, and Rey bows her head. She thinks, maybe, that is exactly what she needed to hear.

"I hated you so much," she muses. "And—I think because I hated you so much, I studied you. I listened to everything you said. It was—fascinating to watch you exist." 

"I would never have expected you to defend me." The survivors on Corsin, the lightsaber sizzling in the air. "To anyone. The survivors, the Resistance. My mother. I would be in exile on some strange planet in the Unknown Regions if you hadn't stood and vouched for me. You owed me nothing but you saved my life anyway."

She frowns; it is now her turn to be mildly offended at such misplaced modesty. "The entire galaxy owed you their lives. Palpatine would be ruling over us right now if you hadn't stepped in. I'm not exaggerating when I say that you turning to the Light literally saved the universe—"

"I didn't do it for the universe," he interrupts her. His eyes are distant and wistful as he says something which confirms something Rey has suspected all along, since their fateful dance in the Emporer's palace. "I did it for you. All of it was for you."

 

-

 

**v. paqualis iii**

 

 

In a rundown motel buried in the depths of Mos Eisley, somewhere on Tatooine, Rey lights a hookah pipe and wipes the salt from her eyes.

She closes her lips around the mouthpiece and inhales; the smoke enters her lungs and makes her cough, several times. But then pink smoke billows out and warmth spreads through her limbs and she is calm, floating,  _floating_ away. The sky opens up as she ascends, hollow-boned.

Littered around her lie scraps of paper. A few printouts from the HoloNet, some transcribed messages picked up from lone satellites that she has hijacked. The odd secret detail she has had to do ugly things to acquire.

Her fingers trace over the letters as they dissolve before her very eyes. Black ink swims across the paper like tadpoles until his name is no longer legible.

(But, okay. We've skipped forward a bit. Rewind.)

 

She turns up on Champala; her hair is longer than it used to be and her eyes older, but her mind is just as sharp. It takes approximately three seconds before she is holding her lightsaber blade to a Chagrian's throat, snarling like some feral Rakatan—

(Yeah, this isn't Rey's favourite part of the story. A bit further, please.)

 

It's late. She's drunk and so is the random person in her arms, found in a cluster of survivors holed up in an abandoned nightclub. He looks so lovely in this lighting and she leans forward and—

He kisses back. It feels like lightning, like pure electricity crackling through her system. His hands are on her shoulders and her hand is on his cheek and their lips are—

She pulls away. Guilt stabs away at her stomach from a distant memory.

(Not quite there yet. Just a little bit further.)

 

Ben isn't responding. It shouldn't feel like, like her world is falling apart but it kind of does.

She staggers into the water and cries; cries so hard she can't see. She washes the blood and the dirt from her skin and ignores how the salt makes every wound sing. It's a needed distraction. The bond is a gaping chasm and when Rey screams into it only her echo replies, variations of herself, strained and panicked: years of survival has taught her to keep herself contained, protected but this is different. Rules are nothing when he is gone, he is gone he is gone he is  _gone_.

(Almost. A few steps and we're there.)

 

-

 

Ah, yes. This is where it all starts to go wrong.

 

The decision to make planetfall on Paqualis III is encouraged mainly by the lack of dark energy either of them feels when they break through the planet's atmosphere. They dip beneath the clouds and into the concrete jungle which covers its surface, senses honed in on the comm tower that protrudes on the far side of town; when Rey prods the Force for any impulses, any signals whizzing to or fro, she receives only blackness.

It's a stale sort of absence. Unnatural. Like a flame that has been stamped on.

The ship senses it: the engine coughs and splutters and they land awkwardly, skidding as if on ice. The hull carves trenches into the road.

 

It looks innocent enough. 

Neither of them see it coming.

(They really should have, to be honest—after it all happened, Rey would dig deep into her soul and realise where she recognised the feeling from. That sense of unease, those bony fingers wrapping around her heart and squeezing.

She'd say to an aged Cerean over a cup of namana liquor, three years later:  _it was obvious, really._ Say,  _I don't know what came over us._

He'd frown.  _Obvious?_

She'd nod. Sip her drink—she'd been drinking a lot lately.  _It was the same feeling I got on Taris. Before it happened. Before it all went to dust._ )

 

They trek out of the city and into the more rural areas, difficult to find considering the impressive industrialisation of the planet. The scene they come across, however, is more than worth the exertion.

It is a watering hole: an expanse of still water bordered by stocky cliffs and a thin bracken of forest. It would be beautiful—it reminds Rey of the backdrop of fairy-tales, picturesque and impossible—were it not for the machinery. An AT-AT stands in the centre of the lake, its body rusted and moss-covered, its head bowed as if drinking. Flowers are blooming in the metal joints, its front left leg is missing. Rey looks at it and hears the screams of all the citizens of Paqualis III at once, this horrible death knell in her head that makes her see stars.

Ben is observing it with intrigue. He says, "There are a million stories here."

"How did it even get there?" Rey breathes. She'd be lying if she said she's not interested. "Why is there only one? What happened to its  _leg_?"

The Resistance never approached Paqualis III, never even flew over it. X-Wing gunfire did not sever this particular limb.

When Ben replies, his face is twisted into a grimace. "Something else," he says, like a prophecy. Like an omen. "Something  _big._ "

 

-

 

The reason neither of them saw it coming is because—and in their defence, they didn't know this—rakghouls are immune to the Force.

The Force cannot sense them. It cannot predict their movements.

It is just them, their claws and their fangs and their venom, and two unsuspecting Force-sensitives on the shore of a lake.

 

There was no reason for Ben and Rey to suspect the presence of rakghouls on Paqualis III.

In fact, neither of them are aware of the herd of them lingering just there, just in the forest, just a hundred yards away. Neither of them has any clue what is happening until Ben feels a row of very sharp fangs wrap around his left shoulder, and bite.

 

-

 

_The plague is—particularly dangerous. It spreads through the merest of contact._

 

-

 

Sprawled out on the earth of Paqualis III, Rey drifts in and out of consciousness, her pulse weak and too slow. The sunset sweeps marmalade rays across the destruction as the night-cycle begins and the sky bleeds and stars blossom like daisies against the dark.

Eventually, she becomes aware of movement. Her body does not move but she feels the fluttering of something against the air. The shallow breath of one severely wounded. The vacuum of the Force abandoning her, all there and then suddenly gone. It makes her head feel hollow. 

When her eyes open, she awakes in a blood-soaked forest. 

 

She wakes up alone.

 

-

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> Planets: [Taris](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Taris/Legends), [Corsin](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Corsin/Legends), [Aquaris](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Aquaris/Legends), [Paqualis III](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Paqualis_III/Legends)
> 
> [Rakghoul serum](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rakghoul_serum)  
> [Demonsquid](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Demonsquid)  
> [Aqua-skimmer](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Aqua-skimmer)  
> [Thorn-vine](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Thorn-vine), a Yuuzhan Vong plant  
> [Figrin D'an](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Figrin_D%27an/Legends), a famous musician  
> [Sith language](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sith_\(language\))  
> [Corsin Retreat](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Corsin_Retreat)  
> [Tinn'lyi islands](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tinn%27lyi_Islands)  
> [Galactic Civil War](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Galactic_Civil_War)  
> [Battle of Scarif](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_of_Scarif), which is the battle featured in Rogue One  
> [Selligores](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Selligore)  
> Survivor group species: [Lurrian](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lurrian), [Twi'lek](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Twi'lek/Legends), [Baragwin](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Baragwin/Legends), [Carosite](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Carosite)  
> [Phraig](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Phraig) (a porridge-like breakfast food)  
> [T'pala paste](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/T%27pala_paste)  
> [Hyper-rapture](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hyper-rapture)  
> [Grevious](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Grievous/Legends) and [Galen Marek](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Galen_Marek)  
> [Hookah pipe](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hookah_pipe/Legends)  
> [Cerean](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cerean), a humanoid species
> 
> [Huttese](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Huttese/Legends) dictionary:  
> Achuta = Hello  
> Ap-xmasi keepuna! = Don't shoot!  
> Dolpee kikyuna = I am a friend  
> Kee chai chai cun kuta? = What are you doing here?  
> Hi chuba da naga? = What do you want?  
> Jeedai = Jedi  
> Nobata = no
> 
> The scene on Paqualis III is inspired entirely by [this amazing artwork](https://www.deviantart.com/fantasio/art/AT-AT-Among-the-Sierra-Nevada-451935163).

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by disasterism's beautiful fic on a similiar topic. i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/bartonholla) and [tumblr](http://turnerkanes.tumblr.com)! come and say hi <3


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